Medellín records five homicides in September, the lowest number in half a century

The Colombian city of Medellín woke up on October 1 to good news. According to official figures from the city administration, September recorded the lowest number of murders in 50 years: just five homicides in the city of 2.5 million inhabitants, 22 fewer than in September 2025.

While the ultimate goal remains zero homicides, Medellín has already logged 148 murder-free days this year. If the trend continues, the homicide rate by the end of 2026 could fall to 9.24 per 100,000 inhabitants, lower than the rates posted last year in Bogotá (14), Philadelphia (14.1) and Chicago (14.6) — a remarkable turnaround for a city once known as the world’s most violent.

“Look: it is possible, and we’re proving it,” celebrated Mayor Federico Gutiérrez, who is three years into his second term. The million-dollar question is: what happened?

The mayor, whose party is a loyal ally of Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, was quick to credit the achievement to his tough-on-crime approach, a local reflection of the president’s policies. “This result is possible thanks to the coordinated work of the police, prosecutors and the military,” he said. His security secretary, Manuel Villa, pointed to the declines recorded over the past three years. But a closer look at the numbers shows that the downward trend predates their administration.

“Since 2013 there has been a systematic decrease,” says Santiago Tobón, a researcher at EAFIT University in Medellín and an expert on organized crime in Medellín. For Tobón, a combination of factors has been helping that decline, some more positive than others, some attributable to Gutiérrez and others not.

Among the positives, Tobón sees “a state more capable of sanctioning, a strengthening that has been underway for 10 to 15 years.”

The expert points in particular to the increased capabilities of prosecutors and the police. The city’s criminal groups, however, have not gone away. He estimates there are around 350 gangs, grouped into some 20 larger organizations involved in drug trafficking and extortion. And those groups may have every incentive to keep homicide levels low.

“If a gang is selling cocaine in a neighborhood and its business depends on avoiding attention from the authorities, then fewer murders are better for business,” he explains. In other words, organized crime has adapted by restraining violence in the face of a stronger state.

Tobón also sees reason for optimism in the long-term effects of social investment in the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods, where gangs recruit young people. “Far more people have been able to enter the formal workforce thanks to investments in cable cars and outdoor escalators,” he says.

Although there is limited data, he notes that today’s 18- to 25-year-olds were born around the time programs such as Buen Comienzo (Good Beginning), aimed at early childhood development, were launched. “I think that has had a positive impact,” he says.

He also points to the effects of Parceros, a program that Mayor Gutiérrez rarely mentions, despite having launched it during his first term in 2018. “It’s a large-scale program that provides cognitive behavioral therapy to young people, teaches them how to manage their emotions, and has been shown to reduce violent behavior,” the researcher adds.

But declining homicide rates do not necessarily mean declining crime. The organized networks involved in drug trafficking and extortion remain strong.

“The head of the snake is here. And from here, most organized crime in Colombia is directed,” De la Espriella said recently when announcing that Medellín would serve as the Colombian headquarters of the Shield of the Americas, the multinational political and military alliance led by U.S. President Donald Trump.

A less optimistic explanation for the drop in homicides is that the gangs themselves have agreed to a truce, not only to avoid drawing the attention of the authorities but also to send a message to the new government. No expert believes this amounts to a secret arrangement with the administration, as occurred in El Salvador when President Nayib Bukele struck deals with gangs that helped drive down crime rates, nor the kind of pact that some in Medellín attribute to the era of the former paramilitary boss Don Berna.

“They are sending a message to the government,” says Luis Fernando Quijano, president of the Corporation for Peace and Social Development (Corpades). Quijano, who has spent years studying crime in Medellín, believes the criminal organizations want to demonstrate the extent of their power. “They do this to show the government that dialogue with them is possible. But I don’t think that message is being properly understood by the city administration, the regional government or the president’s advisers,” he adds.

Quijano finds it ironic that the person who has most openly acknowledged that Medellín remains under the sway of organized crime is the president himself. He agrees with that assessment and argues that city officials are far less direct about the issue. He points to the Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan), Colombia’s largest drug-trafficking organization, which he says has chosen to display its power in a very different way from the Conquering Self-Defence Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN). After one of their leaders was captured, that group enforced a three-day armed shutdown in Santa Marta.

“Every area of the Aburrá Valley where the Gaitanist Army of Colombia has consolidated its dominance has seen reductions,” he says, using the name the Clan del Golfo gives itself. He points as well to falling homicide rates in the neighboring municipalities of Bello and Itagüí.

The president has not claimed credit for the drop in homicides in Medellín. But he has made the city and its criminal groups a priority. On August 8, his first day in office, he ordered the transfer of more than 100 criminals from the prison in Itagüí to maximum-security facilities in other regions.

Quijano believes the move has changed little for the leaders of organized crime. Tobón sees some impact. “The transfers may have disrupted the gangs, and I think the tough-on-crime message was necessary, because before there was a sense of permissiveness,” he says. “The real risk, however, is that the distance makes resolving conflicts between them more difficult.”

As in many places where violent criminal groups operate, homicide rates depend in part on whether those groups are fighting one another. If, as Quijano suggests, the time for sending a message comes to an end and those groups turn their attention to a confrontation with the state, killings could rise again. For now, Medellín has woken up to good news, even if the reasons behind it remain far from clear.

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