Imagine if the former Mafia boss John Gotti, who went to prison for murder and cultivated the public’s fascination with his flamboyant New York lifestyle and menacing charm, had a YouTube channel. Imagine if he used that channel to become a video star by portraying himself as a penitent hit man and regaling viewers with tales of violence while seeking forgiveness for homicides past. For Colombians, the real-life equivalent of such an unlikely YouTube sensation can be found in John Jairo Velásquez.

Colombian fisherman’s boat capsized in bad weather, leaving him adrift for days until he was spotted by navy

About 30 miles southeast of Cartagena's beautiful historic center—picture Epcot Center with friendlier drug dealers—a man rides his beat-up motorcycle into a village hidden for 400 years amongst the swamps and farmland of the Louisiana-meets-Botswana countryside.

El Carmen de Bolivar (Colombia) (AFP) - A mystery illness is plaguing girls in this town in northern Colombia, and locals say a vaccine against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, is to blame. First their hands and feet feel cold. Then they go pale and cannot move. Some convulse and fall to the floor.

Under the cover of darkness and surrounded by a vast security operation, one of Colombia's most notorious cartel hit men was freed early from prison on Tuesday night, dividing the country over the fate of the killer behind thousands of murders at the height of its searing drug violence.