Funeral drive-by shooting ‘linked to Colombian cartel with £100m empire’

The drive-by shooting of a seven-year-old girl at a funeral could be linked to a former Colombian cartel criminal's past.

Petrified guests ran for cover at around 1.30pm on Saturday (January 14) after a barrage of pellets were fired from a shotgun, leaving the girl fighting for her life and five others also injured and hospitalised.

The suspected assassination attempt happened just outside St Aloysius Roman Catholic Church near Euston Station in London, as the guests were preparing to watch a releasing of doves.

A 22-year-old man has been subsequently arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

Around 350 mourners had attended the joint service for Colombian Fresia Calderon, 50, and her daughter Sara Sanchez, 20, who died within a month of each other.

The shots were fired from a black Toyota C-HR and it has since emerged that Fresia's late former husband Carlos Arturo Sanchez-Coronado was a member of the notorious Cali drug cartel, which featured in Netflix's gangster drama series Narcos.

Inevitably, speculation is now growing that the shooting could be linked to his background of crime.

Sanchez-Coronado also had the dubious honour of being the first man to be extradited from Colombia to the UK and was jailed in 2009 after pleading guilty to money laundering and fake document charges.

Cocaine and cannabis worth £100million were found by police during searches of his London homes, the Sun reports.

And the impact of taking his coke off the streets was seen when the price of the drug soared by 50% in the UK.

Sanchez-Coronado moved to live in Chile before he died last year at the age of 56.

Police have declined to comment on the case but one guest has said: "People are saying the intended target was a man who attended the service."

The injured seven-year-old girl is in a "stable" condition while the injuries to the other victims – four women aged 21, 41, 48 and 54 – were not life-threatening.

Fresia died after collapsing with a pulmonary embolism having flown into Heathrow Airport from Colombia in November, while Sara had been fighting leukaemia.

Father Jeremy Trood, who conducted the service, said: "It’s been a shock for the whole community."

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