Caracol evacuates Bogotá headquarters; police report no evidence of explosives

That finding narrowed the immediate alarm, but it did not settle the warning that had emptied the workplace. No bomb or completed attack is established in the available reporting. Nor is there confirmation that employees were cleared to return or that the broadcaster’s normal operations continued without interruption.

Noticias Caracol placed the authorities’ warning at approximately 8 p.m. Bogotá time and said personnel working that night were evacuated immediately. That is an approximate time for receipt of the warning, not a separately verified exact time for the evacuation. The account did not give a headcount of the people who had to leave.⁠3

The company’s statement, reproduced by Caracol Radio, described what authorities had told it and left further disclosure to them. In English translation, it said:

The statement did not identify those groups, disclose the information behind the warning or specify a weapon. Beyond the reported evacuation, it did not detail the measures taken to protect employees and the building. It established the company’s account of a warning from authorities—not that an attack was already under way.⁠1

Some early coverage described a presumed bomb threat. Extra’s November 7 report used that description; El Espectador’s subsequent reporting that night attributed to Bogotá Metropolitan Police a finding that there was no bomb threat inside or around Noticias Caracol, with its subheading saying authorities had ruled out explosives. The later police assessment is the relevant update to that initial explosive-device alarm.⁠6⁠12

The distinction matters because the two accounts address different questions. A finding of no evidence of explosives at the premises does not explain why authorities warned the broadcaster about an intention to attack. Equally, that original warning cannot be turned into a claim that police discovered a device. Neither a recovered explosive nor a detonation is established.

The police finding is available through published reporting; the underlying police communiqué was not available for independent examination here. It should therefore be attributed as a reported police assessment, not expanded into a completed security clearance, a declaration that the warning was false or permission for staff to re-enter.⁠12

Caracol Radio also reported two accounts of aircraft near the headquarters, with different levels of uncertainty. Citizens described a helicopter flying over La Floresta for several minutes and tentatively identified it as belonging to the National Police. Separately, preliminary information suggested a possible drone near the building. The report explicitly said the drone information had not been officially confirmed.⁠1

Those accounts should not be combined into a picture of an attempted aerial attack. A reported helicopter sighting does not corroborate a drone sighting, and neither establishes the means of any planned attack. There is no confirmed connection between a drone and the warning against the channel.

For the employees displaced from their workplace, the practical questions remain more immediate: whether they can return, whether work has continued elsewhere and whether broadcasting was interrupted. The available accounts do not establish those outcomes. They also provide no verified casualty information; that absence is not an official confirmation that nobody was injured.⁠3⁠12

The evacuation is the concrete consequence of the warning. The absence of evidence of explosives is a reassuring finding, but not a complete explanation of the night. What remains missing is an authoritative account of the information that prompted the alert and the security decision that followed it—including whether the building has been cleared for its staff.