Archive image of Colombian police officers NATIONAL POLICE OF COLOMBIA (Europa Press)
Jhon Jairo Contreras and Luz Andrea Villabona spent their final hours in a room at the Kamasutra motel in Bucaramanga. The couple decided to celebrate Halloween night in this place that offers “unforgettable moments” to those in love. It was two thirty in the morning when they finished their last step in this life. They called the cab driver who picked them up and got in the back. The car started. The last thing they saw were two motorcycles at window level. Just before there is a hail of gunfire. Contreras died instantly from the nine bullets aimed directly at his head. Villabona was shot three times in the abdomen. The taxi driver, the only witness in the dead of night, managed to get her alive to the hospital.
Contreras, 32, exited the motel in combat fatigues. The killers waiting for them knew that he used to carry a bulletproof vest and a pistol at all times. Also that night. In order not to miss, all shots went straight to the face. The police document indicates he was a cattle rancher, but the latest crime that has rocked the city already involves the war between drug trafficking gangs, long the protagonists of vendettas, and hired assassins in the area.
Villabona, 34, aka La Ratona, was not supposed to be there that night. The official report states that she is a manicurist, but in 2019 she was arrested for drug trafficking with her then-partner. He is in prison and she has been sentenced to house arrest. Authorities linked her to a criminal gang in the city.
Prosecutors have launched an investigation but are silent on any leads that will help uncover the reasons for the crime. There are two open lines on the table: a problem between drug clans or a crime of passion. This last idea, based on the possibility that Villabona’s ex-partner ordered the murder from prison, loses steam as the hours go by.
For a little less than a year, two criminal groups have been vying for control of the city’s drug trade. These are Los Coloso, whose leader Óscar Camargo aka Pichi was arrested at the end of 2020, and the gang Los del Sur or Los Mexicanos, led by Nelson Enrique Reátiga aka Poporro, which according to the authorities is on the run from Mexico. The rivalry didn’t always exist. Poporro, who was part of the ELN guerrillas, joined Pichi as part of his security program in Bucaramanga. One put his life in the other’s hands. With the fall of Los Coloso’s leader, also known as Pablo Escobar of Bucaramanga, Poporro attempted to take over the town’s businesses. His old boss took this as a betrayal and started the war.
Jhon Jairo Contreras’ body will be wrapped this Thursday in Floridablanca, 15 minutes from Bucaramanga, in a ceremony that will be broadcast on Facebook Live. It seems the mystery of why he left the motel in gear as a soldier to go to the front lines is being buried.
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