It reveals the violator

The BBC Global Service found that the Colombian giant Ecopeetrol has contaminated hundreds of sites with oil, including water sources and wet lands in the field of biological diversity.

The data leaked by a former employee reveals more than 800 records of these sites from 1989 to 2018, and indicates that the company has failed to report a fifth of them.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has also obtained numbers that shows that the company has been spilled hundreds of times since then.

Ecopetrol says it is perfectly compatible with Colombian law and has leading industry practices on sustainability.

The main refinery of the company is located in Barrancabermeja, 260 km (162 miles), north of the Colombian capital, Bogota.

The huge group extends from processing factories, industrial chimneys and storage tanks for a kilometer (1.2 miles) along the banks of the longest river in Colombia, a water source for millions of people.

Hunting community members there believe that oil pollution affects wildlife in the river.

The broader region is home to turtles threatened with extinction, exit and spider monkeys, and it is part of a hot point rich in species in one of the world’s most countries in the world. The nearby wetlands include a full -time homeland.

When BBC visited last June, the families were hunting together in the waterways that intersect with the oil pipelines.

One of the locals said that some of the fish they burned released the smell of crude oil that was cooking.

In places, an iris swirl on the surface of the water – a distinctive signature of oil pollution can be seen.

Fishering a hunter in water and grew up a group of plants covered with dark mud.

“All this is the grease and waste that comes directly from the Ecopeetrol refinery,” said Juli Villaswits, President of Fedyanan, Federation of Fishing Organizations in the region.

ECOPETROL, owned by 88 % of Colombian state, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, refuses to allegations of fishermen to pollute water.

In response to the BBC questions, it says that effective wastewater treatment systems and effective emergency plans for oil spill.

André Olarati, the amounts of the amounts who participated in the company’s data, says that pollution by the company dates back to many years.

He joined Ecopeetrol in 2017 and started working as a CEO consultant. He says he soon realized “something wrong.”

Mr. Ultrat says that he challenged managers about what the “terrible” pollution data describes, but he was rejected with reactions such as: “Why do you ask these questions? You do not get what this job is going on.”

He left the company in 2019, and participated in a large amount of company data with the United States -based non -governmental organizations to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and then with the BBC. The BBC has been achieved from Ecopeetrol servers.

One database participated, on January 2019, contains a list of 839 called “environmental effects that have not been resolved” throughout Colombia.

Ecopeetrol uses this term to mean areas where the oil is not completely cleaned of soil and water. The data shows that, as of 2019, some of these sites remained contaminated in this way for more than a decade.

Mr. OLARTE claims that the company was trying to hide some of the Colombian authorities, pointing to about a fifth of the records called “only known for Ecopeetrol”.

“You can see a group in Excel where anyone is hidden from power and any of them, which shows the process of hiding things from the government,” says Mr. Ulurt.

The BBC was filmed in one of the sites that bears the “known only for Ecopeetrol”, which was dated 2017 in the database. Seven years later, it was a thick black material and the appearance of her oils with plastic containing barriers around it visible along the edge of a portion of wetlands.

Felipe Payon, CEO of Ecopeetrol from 2017 to 2023, told the BBC that he strongly denied suggestions that there is any policy to block information about pollution.

He said, “I tell you with complete confidence that there is no, and no policy nor any instructions say:” These things cannot be shared. “

Mr. Bayon blames sabotage of many oil spills.

Colombia has a long history of armed conflict, and illegal armed groups have targeted oil facilities – but “theft” or “attack” is only mentioned by 6 % of the cases listed in the database.

He also said he believed that there is “great progress” since then in solving problems that lead to oil pollution.

However, a separate set of data shows that Ecopeetrol continued to pollution.

The numbers obtained by the British Broadcasting Corporation from the environmental organizer in Colombia, the National Environmental Licensing Authority (AnLa), showed that Ecopeetrol has reported hundreds of oil ships per year since 2020.

When asked about the 2019 database of contaminated sites, Ecopetrol admits that it contains records of 839 environmental accidents, but the conflicts were classified as “not resolved.”

The company says 95 % of polluted sites that have been classified as have not been resolved since 2018 have now been cleaned.

She says that all incidents of pollution are subject to the management process and are informed of the regulator.

Data from the regulator include hundreds of spills in the Barrancabermeja area where MS Velásquez and The Fishes live.

Fisherwoman and its colleagues monitor biological diversity in wetlands in the region, which feeds on the Magdalena River.

She said there was an “massacre” of animals. She said last June: “This year, there were three dead myths, and five Buffalo dead. We found more than 10 kayman.

It is not clear the cause of deaths – the phenomenon of nital weather and climate change may be factors.

A study conducted in 2022 conducted by the University of Nottingham recounting pollution – from oil production and other industrial and home sources – as one of the factors between many climate change, which lands from the Magdalina River basin.

Mr. Olarte Ecopeetrol left in 2019. He moved to his family’s home near Barrancabermeja, and says he met an old call to ask for job opportunities. Soon, he says that the unknown ser in his phone threatens to kill him.

He says: “In the call, I understood that they thought I had complained against Ecopeetrol, and this is not the case.”

Mr. Olarati says more threats followed, including a note that showed it to the BBC. He does not know who has done the threats and there is no evidence that Ecopeetrol is their matter.

Mrs. Villaswiz and seven other people also told the BBC that they had received death threats after the Ecopeetrol Challenge.

She said that an armed group launched warning shots at her home and sprayed the word “leave” on the wall.

Fisherwoman has now been protected by the armed bodyguards paid by the government, but the threats continued.

When asked about the threats described by Mr. Ulrt, former CEO of Mr. Bayon said they were “completely unacceptable.”

“I want to clarify completely … there was no arrangement of this kind,” said Mr. Payon.

Mrs. Villaswiz and Mr. Ulrt know that the risks are real. Colombia is the world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders, according to Global Witness, where 79 was killed in 2023.

Experts say that such killings are linked to the armed conflict that lasted for decades, as government forces and paramilitary obligations have fought left -wing rebel groups.

Despite the government’s attempts to end the conflict, armed groups and drug gangs remain active in parts of the country.

Matthew Smith, oil analyst and financial journalist in Colombia, says he does not believe that Ecopeetrol managers are participating in threats by armed groups.

But he says that there is a “enormous” overlap between the previous paramilitary groups and the private security sector.

Private security companies often employ members of paramilitary groups and compete for profitable contracts to protect oil facilities, he says.

Mr. OLARTE shared ECOPTROL emails, which shows that in 2018, the company paid a total of $ 65 million to more than 2,800 private security companies.

“There are always this risk of some kind of infection between private security companies, the types of people who use them, and their desire to keep their contract constantly,” Smith says.

He says this can even include the kidnapping or killing of community leaders or environmental defenders in order to “ensure the continuation of Ecopeetrol operations smoothly.”

Mr. Payon said that he was “convinced that the obligatory checks and deception” were made “regarding the company’s relations with private security companies.

Ecopetrol says he had no relationships with illegal armed groups. She says she has strong due care and implementation assessments of human rights impact on her activities.

BBC contacted other members of the previous ECOPTROL leadership from the time of Mr. Olarte, who strongly deny allegations in this report.

Now live in Germany, Mr. Olarte has submitted complaints about the ecoetrol environmental registry of the Colombian authorities and the company itself – so far, without a meaningful result.

He was also in a series of legal issues against Ecopeetrol and its administration, related to his work there, which has not been resolved yet.

He says: “I did this in defense of my home, from my land, logically, on my people.”

Mr. Payon emphasized the economic and social importance of Ecopterol to Colombia.

“We have 1.5 million families that cannot reach energy or who cook with firewood and charcoal,” he said. “I think we should continue to rely on the clean production of oil, gas and all energy sources, to move without ending a very important industry for the Colombians.”

Mrs. Villasoyez is still determined to continue speaking, despite threats.

“If we do not go to fish, we will not eat,” she said. “If we talk and inform us, we have been killed … and if we do not reach us, we kill ourselves, because all these incidents of heavy pollution destroy the environment around us.”