Colombian authorities have arrested four people, including a woman, in connection with the killing of Italian biologist Alessandro Coatti, whose dismembered body was found earlier this year in Santa Marta. Police say the suspects lured him into a fake meeting arranged through a dating app, with the intent to rob him — a plan that ended in murder.
The arrests, announced Sunday, follow months of forensic analysis and digital tracking. Investigators say Coatti, 38, was led to an abandoned home in the San José del Pando neighborhood under the pretense of a trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The encounter had been set up via Grindr, an app widely used by gay men and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
According to police, Coatti was drugged, robbed and ultimately killed inside the house. What remains unclear is whether the homicide was planned from the outset or if the situation escalated unexpectedly. The motive does not appear to be tied to drug cartels or paramilitary groups, authorities said, but rather to a robbery scheme gone wrong.
Digital evidence was central to the investigation. Data extracted from Coatti’s phone and laptop — including chat logs and cloud backups — helped authorities retrace his final hours and led them to the individuals now in custody. Further questioning is expected in the coming days as police seek to determine whether others were involved.
Originally from Italy, Coatti had a background in molecular biology and completed postgraduate research in neuroscience at University College London. He later worked for eight years at the Royal Society of Biology in the U.K. In recent months, he had been traveling in South America, combining personal tourism with a volunteer program in Ecuador.
The case has sparked renewed concern over the safety of LGBTQ+ travelers, particularly those using dating apps in unfamiliar or high-risk areas. As Rolling Stone recently noted, digital platforms that serve queer communities can also be exploited to stage violent attacks — a pattern that appears to be growing in several countries.
Authorities in Colombia have not ruled out further arrests.
