Thirty Years in a Seized Bowling Alley: A Colombian Church Is Evicted Over 2.2 Billion Pesos in Rent

• Abundant Life Christian Church was evicted from a 4,533-square-metre building in Barranquilla
• The property, a former bowling alley, was seized from alleged drug traffickers in the 1990s
• The state’s asset agency said the church owed 2.2 billion pesos (about US$593,300) in rent
• The church’s lawyer said it had invested more than 2.5 billion pesos in improvements

Colombian authorities evicted Abundant Life Christian Church (Vida Abundante) from the building it had used for nearly 30 years in Barranquilla, Colombia One reported on May 12, 2026. The eviction took place on May 7.

The 4,533-square-metre property in the San Rafael neighbourhood of northern Barranquilla originally housed Tito’s Bowling Alley. It was seized in the 1990s from Julio Cesar Nasser David and Sheila Arana over drug trafficking and money laundering, and is now managed by Colombia’s Special Assets Society (SAE) through its FRISCO fund.

The SAE said the church owed 2.2 billion pesos, about US$593,300, in unpaid fees from 2020 up to the proceedings. The church’s lawyer said the congregation had invested more than 2.5 billion pesos in improvements. The church is led by Pastor Orlando de la Ossa and his wife Maritza de la Ossa, and has a branch in Miami. Members protested with banners and hymns, and church security at first blocked the doors before authorities got in.

After three decades in the building, the congregation left with a disputed rent debt and no ownership of the improvements it says it paid for.

Many growing Jamaican churches rent large commercial spaces, from plazas to former cinemas and warehouses. The Barranquilla case is a reminder that a tenant’s improvements usually belong to the landlord in the end, and that rent arrears can wipe out years of investment. A church that plans to spend heavily on a rented building should negotiate a long lease, a written agreement on who owns improvements, and, where possible, an option to buy.

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