In an upscale Bogotá neighborhood near the Unicentro mall, a modest 98-square-meter (1,055-square-foot) apartment has an almost unbelievable number of owners: 4,290 of them. Most hold a mere 0.023% stake each, the result of a compensation scheme for victims of DMG, one of Colombia’s most notorious pyramid schemes, whose leader David Murcia Guzmán is serving more than 20 years in prison.
According to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, many of these unwitting co-owners had no idea they’d been assigned a sliver of the property until years later. One victim said he only learned about it after Bogotá’s tax office demanded he pay roughly $750 in back property taxes—despite never having made any prior payment on a home he didn’t know he owned. Others found out when they applied for housing subsidies and were rejected because official records showed them as property owners, even though they had no real stake in—or access to—any home.
The apartment is valued at about $115,000, meaning each fractional share is worth roughly $26—a fraction of the $5,000 to $12,500 many victims originally invested. The property is reportedly occupied by someone else entirely, according to a building security guard.
Eighteen years after DMG’s collapse defrauded more than 200,000 Colombians, this case illustrates just how tangled the aftermath remains. Read the full investigation at El Tiempo.
Source: El apartamento con 4.200 copropietarios víctimas de DMG; dicen que se enteraron por el cobro del impuesto (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: willy gil, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).