An express kidnapping highlights the risks of taking a taxi in Colombia’s capital. What happened, and how to avoid it happening to you.
Bogotá breathed a collective sigh of relief on Tuesday morning when news broke of the safe arrival home of Diana Ospina, a rola missing for almost 40 hours after being kidnapped by a taxi she had hailed in the street after a night out in Chapinero.
Ospina was the latest victim of El Paseo Millonario, the ‘millionaire ride’, where passengers riding in yellow public taxis are physically attacked and forced to hand over cash and valuables.
The technique varies, but victims are usually targeted late at night in busy streets in party zones outside restaurants or discotheques, then driven to a quiet spot where two accomplices of the driver climb in the back seat and threaten the passenger with knives, guns or syringes.
See also: Bogotá’s Murder Mosaic
The following ordeal can last minutes or hours or even days. Victims are intimidated with beatings or stab wounds, and hooded or blindfolded. Some are killed, as in the case of a university professor found dead on the outskirts of the city in January this year.
Foreigners are also targeted: in 2013, a DEA officer Terry Watson was stabbed to death in a Bogotá taxi after two assailants jumped in the back seat. Authorities later said the army veteran resisted the attack. Seven taxi drivers were later captured and extradited to the U.S. to face charges for his murder.
The scale of the problem is hard to assess as victims are often too scared to denounce the crime (the attackers know where you live). In terms of high profile cases, there are several every year.
Publicity blitz
In the case of Ospina, her kidnap started early Sunday morning when she hailed a yellow taxi that took her to within one block of her home in Engativá, where two men from a following taxi climbed in the back, threatened her and took her blindfolded for a three-hour driver around the city while using her phone and bank cards.
The ordeal did not end there. Ospina was then passed on to another kidnap group operating in the south of the city and held in a house there while more extortion demands were made. Late on Monday night, after being captive for nearly 40 hours, Ospina was dropped off in the hills above Bogotá where she eventually walked to a police station for assistance.
According to information on FM radio, from contacts close to the family, the kidnap gang released her after the “feeling pressure from the media blitz” with social media platforms widely publicising her disappearance. Other news reports stated they released her only after draining 50 million pesos (US$15,000) from her bank accounts.
This week the authorities were still hunting the perpetrators, expecting arrests imminently.
Your world in your phone
The Ospina case highlights how smartphones have upped the risks for kidnap victims in Colombia.
Whereas in the past a paseo millonario was usually a short-term event – passengers held for an hour while the gang used their bankcards at an ATM – criminals nowadays are eyeing much bigger profits from emptying bank accounts held on smartphones.
The insistence by banks and other financial platforms to use biometric approvals such as face recognition or fingerprint scanning has created the need for gangs to keep their targets captive for many days, in some cases drugging them into compliance or subduing them through threats of violence.
See also: Bogotá Police take down gang drugging victims in Teusaquillo and Chapinero
The rise of the digital nomads in Colombia often with juicy crypto accounts accessed through their phones has also created opportunities for tech savvy criminals. After such attacks, platforms are reluctant to reimburse funds arguing that they were transferred with the biometric approval of the victim.
One thing is clear: apart from increased financial losses, the longer victims are held captive the worse their outcome, both in terms of physical and psychological damage, the risk of sexual violence, or death from an overdose of the powerful drugs such as burundanga administered by the gangs.
The Canaries
Bogotá has more than 55,000 public taxis circulating on any given day sometimes referred to as ‘Los Canarios’ (the canaries) after their yellow cars and a popular telenovela depicting taxi drivers. It is worth noting that taxi drivers are themselves frequently the victims of robbery, extortions and murder.
Yellow taxi companies in Bogotá are registered and controlled by the Secretería de Movilidad with each driver given a Tarjeta de Control, the plasticized card hanging down the seat back that – in theory – displays the name, details and photo of the driver as well as the fare scale, and is revalidated every month.
In Bogotá, passengers can independently check the status of registered drivers by entering the numberplate into the menu at SIMUR at www.simur.gov.co/conductores-de-taxi.
But in a random test by The Bogotá Post, out of 10 taxis entered by number plate, only six had a registered driver. Four were reported “without an active registration”.
That lack of control is further weakened by the fact that registered taxistas often allow other drivers to take the wheel, said transport companies this week.
“We work on good faith, but we can’t guarantee that drivers don’t hand over their cars to other persons to commit crimes,” Maria Botero, manager of Radiotaxis told Noticias Caracol.
In the case of Ospina, the taxis that abducted her were quickly identified along with their owners, but not the actual attackers. One car was not currently registered on SIMUR.
No dar papaya
How to avoid becoming a victim? A good tip is to use a ride platforms like Didi, Cabify, Uber or Indrive. Some like Didi are also linked to the yellow public taxis, but safer because the ride is traced. At times hailing a street taxi is the only option because app cars are far off, and you weigh the risks of standing on the street, or (as in the case of Diana Ospina) the app ride is suddenly cancelled.
Attacks are usually at night, on weekends, on persons leaving bars or restaurants. But passengers can be targeted in daytime, particularly in financial districts or leaving a bank. If you are riding the yellow taxis, here are some ways to no dar papaya, as they say in Bogotá (‘don’t be a sucker’).
Before going out:
- Carry a clean phone with no banking apps and limited personal data. Many people in Bogotá are now leaving their financial transactions on a second phone or tablet stored safely at home.
- Carry a wad of cash. Perhaps counterintuitively, in the digital world cash makes you less of a target. And it is easy to hand over.
- If you do carry a bank card, take just one linked to a low-balance account.
Getting the taxi:
- Travel in a group. Criminals generally target solo passengers.
- Check the taxi numberplate in SIMUR, see above. This takes seconds and confirms if there is a registered driver. If not, walk away.
- Take a photo of the taxi numberplate, send to friends or family. Ensure the driver sees you doing this.
- Before entering a taxi, look carefully to ensure there is no-one hidden inside.
- Check the Tarjeta de Control photo with the actual driver. Do this before setting off.
- Check doors can be locked and unlocked from the passenger seat.
During the trip:
- Lock doors on both sides.
- Share your real-time location with a family member or friend.
Signs of danger:
- The driver changes the route without explanation.
- The taxi turns onto dark or deserted streets.
- The driver suddenly stops to pick up other persons.
- Motorcycles or other cars or taxis closely follow the vehicle.
During an attack:
- Prioritize your physical safety.
- Give up any valuables without resistance.
If you suspect someone you know has been abducted by a taxi gang, call the GAULA special police unit (Grupos de Acción Unificada por la Libertad Personal) that deals with extortion and kidnapping, on Line 165.
“Safe taxi” zones
Even with these precautions, street taxis are still a risk, and a growing one according to Bogotá security authorities who during 2025 arrested at least 20 persons from several different Paseo Millonario gangs such as La 57 and La Zona T.
A recent advance by the city has been the recognition of the crime as “kidnap with extortion”, with up to 40 years in jail for perpetrators.
Another nitiative announced by the Secretaría de Seguridad this week was taxi seguro zones where uniformed teams patrol outside nightspots and assist revellers to take only registered taxis.
But while mediatic, such initiatives are likely to have only limited impact. Taxi gangs are generally compact, with three people, and mobile so they can cruise new zones. And new gangs seem to pop up as quickly as old ones are taken down.
So while the city can celebrate the safe return of Diana Ospina, and hopefully soon see her attackers rounded up, there will be plenty more candidates for the Millionaire Ride.