Someone had been watching her home, documenting it, gathering intelligence.
A surveillance drone crashed near councilor Carrasquilla's home with video storage card intact, following months of threats from FARC Front 36 and 18 dissidents. Carrasquilla and other opposition councilors face escalating intimidation after publicly denouncing criminal activities in Medellín's peace dialogue processes.
- Drone with video storage card crashed at councilor Claudia Carrasquilla's residence on May 28, 2026
- FARC Front 36 and Front 18 dissidents had threatened drone attack months earlier via email
- Carrasquilla and councilor Andrés Tobón faced threats after exposing April 8 prison celebration with gang leaders
- Council president Alejandro de Bedout reported attempted delivery of message from La Paz prison on April 24
- Threats escalated three days before presidential elections
Medellín councilor Claudia Carrasquilla reported a drone with video recording equipment hovering over her residence, following previous threats from FARC dissidents. Police are investigating the incident as potential surveillance and intimidation.
On a Thursday afternoon in late May, a security guard at Claudia Carrasquilla's residential building in Medellín approached her with urgent news: a drone had been circling her tower. It had crashed. Inside the machine, when authorities retrieved it, they found a video storage card.
Carrasquilla is a councilor in Medellín, representing the Centro Democrático party. She is also, by now, accustomed to threats. But this one was different—tangible, mechanical, deliberately equipped to record. She called the National Police. The metropolitan police's forensic laboratory ran preliminary tests and ruled out explosives, but the presence of that storage card suggested something perhaps more chilling: someone had been watching her home, documenting it, gathering intelligence.
The incident did not arrive without warning. Months earlier, someone had sent an email to the city council's official address claiming knowledge of a plan by FARC Front 36 and Front 18—dissident factions that split from the larger organization—to attack her residence using a drone. Carrasquilla had been reporting threats for several months, she said, threats she attributed to members of these same dissident groups. Now the threat had materialized in metal and electronics on her doorstep.
This drone incident sits within a larger pattern of intimidation targeting Medellín's opposition councilors. In April, the city council was forced to hold a closed session—no public attendance, no media, no broadcast—after threats emerged against both Carrasquilla and fellow councilor Andrés Tobón. The trigger, according to reporting, was their public denunciation of an event that had taken place in the high-security wing of Itagüí prison: on April 8th, twenty-three gang leaders participating in the Petro administration's urban peace dialogue had celebrated with a vallenato band, catering, and alcohol. The two councilors had exposed what they saw as a grotesque contradiction at the heart of the government's peace strategy.
The threats escalated further. On April 24th, the council president, Alejandro de Bedout, reported to prosecutors that an unidentified man had attempted to enter the council building carrying a message from someone inside La Paz prison in Itagüí. Antioquia's security secretary requested that the national government strengthen De Bedout's protection detail. Unofficially, sources told El Colombiano that an attack on Carrasquilla had come close to execution before the alleged perpetrators were arrested. Those same individuals, the sources suggested, may have been connected to the murder of councilor Juan Camilo Espinosa in San Andrés de Cuerquia.
Carrasquilla has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of what she describes as the strengthening of criminal structures across Antioquia. She has pointed to the dissident FARC fronts as evidence that the government's peace initiatives—both the broader "Total Peace" policy and the more localized "Urban Peace" program—have failed to reduce violence. Instead, she argues, they have expanded criminal control over territory, increased extortion, displaced civilians, and enabled the recruitment of minors into illegal armed groups. In July 2025, she had already reported threats following the release of prisoners ordered under the Urban Peace framework.
The timing of the drone incident—three days before presidential elections—added another layer of tension to her statement. "We are three days from elections with threats against opposition members," she said. "Let us remember that this has already cost the life of our candidate Miguel Uribe, and today this happens to me." The reference was to Uribe's assassination, a killing that had shadowed the political landscape and underscored the real cost of opposition politics in Medellín.
Police continue to investigate the drone's origin, its operator, and the purpose of the video recording. The storage card remains in custody. Carrasquilla remains under threat, and the question of who sent the machine—and what they intended to do with the footage—remains unanswered.
Citas Notables
I called the authorities, the National Police. They are analyzing the drone to determine who it belongs to and from where they were operating it, because this is a very delicate risk situation for me.— Claudia Carrasquilla, Medellín councilor
We are three days from elections with threats against opposition members. Let us remember that this has already cost the life of our candidate Miguel Uribe, and today this happens to me.— Claudia Carrasquilla
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why would a criminal group send a drone to record her home rather than simply act on their threats?
Surveillance often precedes action. They gather information—patterns, security details, when she's home, when she's not. It's also intimidation itself. She knows she's being watched. That's the point.
The storage card is interesting. That suggests they wanted to keep the footage, not just observe in real time.
Exactly. They were documenting something specific. Whether it was for operational planning or to send a message—to show her they could get close—we don't know yet. But it's deliberate.
She mentioned the prison party. That seems like an odd thing to trigger this level of violence.
It's not odd if you understand what she was exposing. The government is negotiating with these groups, offering them concessions, and meanwhile they're still running extortion networks, recruiting kids, controlling neighborhoods. She made that contradiction public. That's dangerous.
And the previous threats—the email about the drone attack plan—those came before this incident?
Months before. So this wasn't random. Someone was following through on what they'd already announced. The question is whether this was a test, a warning, or whether something interrupted the actual plan.
The article mentions arrests. So someone was stopped?
According to unofficial sources, yes. The people allegedly behind the threat were captured before they could carry it out. But it doesn't stop the broader campaign of intimidation against her and other councilors who've spoken out.