Nineteen-year-old Alba Lucía Castañeda Torres and her partner—also Colombian—45-year-old Iván Luque, were murdered on June 8 by a group of men on motorcycles who had been following them through the streets of downtown Mexico City. The young woman had arrived just a couple of days earlier and was preparing to watch the opening of the World Cup with her partner; he had also promised to help her set up a business in the Mexican capital to support herself. A few hours later, the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSC) confirmed that the incident was a “direct attack” and stated that a review of video surveillance footage in the Morelos neighborhood—located in the Cuauhtémoc borough—was underway to identify the assailants.
On Friday afternoon, the Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office also confirmed that “lines of investigation” are currently being pursued but stated that, in order to ensure the investigation is “conducted properly and due process is not compromised,” they cannot provide further details on the case. “Regarding the events of June 8 in the Cuauhtémoc borough, in which a Colombian couple lost their lives, the Prosecutor’s Office reports that an investigation is ongoing to clarify the facts,” the office stated.
The attack has shaken the host city of the international tournament—a city that, just months ago, was touted as the most heavily video-monitored urban area in the world, and where the Colombian national team’s victory over Uzbekistan had recently demonstrated the massive presence of Colombian citizens. Beyond the information provided by the capital’s prosecutor’s office, authorities have not released updates on the case’s progress, while the young woman’s father, José Isidro Castañeda, has appealed via media outlets and social networks for assistance in transporting his daughter’s remains back from Colombia. According to the SSC report, a motorcycle had been following the black car carrying Alba Castañeda and Iván Luque for several minutes along Paseo de la Reforma—one of the capital’s main avenues—near its intersection with Ricardo Flores Magón in the Morelos neighborhood, located in the city center.
In an interview with the Bogotá-based news program *Alerta 104.4 FM* on June 16, the young woman’s father explained that Luque was a friend with “supposedly a lot of money” whom his daughter had known for two years; he added that Luque was taking her to Mexico so she could see the country and enjoy a vacation. “I’m a very wary person; I told her to be very careful, that people don’t just show up overnight with that kind of money. But she insisted that he was treating her well and was going to help her a lot, mentioning that they were also going to Mexico to help her set up a business. I think the man genuinely wanted to help her, but you never know what kind of entanglements the other person might have—after all, nobody has millions for free, and people don’t travel frequently between countries. I don’t know the full details of that man’s situation,” he said.
The father also recounted that, prior to the trip, a man had come to their home to hand his daughter an envelope containing the money for the journey. He said the last messages he received from her were on Monday, June 8, around 11:00 a.m., when she told him she had arrived in Mexico and was watching television. Then, about 12 hours later, she messaged again when she left the house—perhaps to go out for dinner. After that, nothing—just silence. He tried to contact her but received no further replies.
It wasn’t until the following Friday, June 12, that a friend confirmed his daughter had been killed. “Two motorcycles pulled up alongside them at a traffic light and opened fire,” Castañeda described on the radio program. Some local media outlets in Colombia have identified Luque as Iván Darío Nieto Luque—alias “Siberiano”—a man with an alleged criminal record in Colombia. In a video circulating on social media, recorded by José Castañeda, he asks for support to cover the costs of his daughter’s transfer: “I need 20 million pesos [just over 100,000 Mexican pesos] within a maximum of 15 days to repatriate my daughter from Mexico; I cannot leave her there. No parent ever expects something like this to happen to their children.”
