Former world champion boxer Antonio Cermeño, who was nicknamed El Coloso (The Colossus) during the peak of his career, is reportedly dead at 44 after being kidnapped and killed in Venezuela, according to local police chief Eliseo Guzman.
Cermeño was found shot to death on a road on the Caucagua-Higuerote highway in the state of Miranda on Tuesday after he and his relatives were kidnapped near the La Urbina neighborhood in east Caracas on Monday night. Relatives of Cermeño have disclosed that they escaped from the kidnappers when they stopped to refuel their car, but unfortunately, the WBA super bantamweight and featherweight champion could not escape.
Cermeño's death is yet another high-profile death that accentuates Venezuela's violence problem. Last month, Miss Venezuela and Telemundo actress Mónica Spear died after a robbery in Venezuela while on vacation with her ex-husband Thomas Henry Berry and her 5-year-old daughter. According to Globovision, Spear and her family were approached by the assailants and were shot to death, in close range, after they resisted the attack.
In the wake of the beauty queen's murder, President Nicolás Maduro promised to tackle the issue and pre-poned a security meeting that was scheduled for a later date. A 2010 UN report cites that Venezuela ranks as one of the top four murderous nation in the world with a murder rate of 39 per 100,000 people, according to the Venezuelan government. That said, it should be noted that a nongovernment agency, the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, claims that the murder rate cited by the government are grossly downplayed. The agency reports that there were 24,763 murders last year, which would put the murder rate at 79 per 100,000 people.
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
