Within the framework of a simultaneous operation carried out in the city of Cúcuta and the municipality of Zipaquirá, troops of the Cundinamarca Military GAULA (anti-extortion and anti-kidnapping group), with the support of the Norte de Santander Military GAULA and in coordination with the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) of the Attorney General's Office, attached to the department of Cundinamarca, reported the arrests by court order of five people for the crimes of aggravated extortion kidnapping and the manufacture, trafficking and/or carrying of ammunition.
According to the investigative work carried out by the CTI, those arrested would be responsible for planning and executing the kidnapping of two elderly adults, who had been held in subhuman conditions for more than 80 days, in an event that occurred in June of the previous year. This crime generated the rejection of the authorities due to its gravity and degradation of the integrity of the victims.
According to the investigations, those involved identified themselves as members of the residual organized armed group Frente 33 of the FARC dissidents and demanded 10 million pesos in exchange for the rescue of the victims. Thanks to the pressure exerted by the troops, the criminals fled the place and it was possible to rescue the elderly in a rural area of the municipality of Zipaquirá.
With the commitment to find those responsible for this unfortunate crime and after more than eight months of investigative work, the livication of the alleged kidnappers was established, enabling their arrest: four of them in the city of Cúcuta and one in the municipality of Zipaquirá.
The authorities in the same way tried to establish that these people would be carrying out criminal coordination and intelligence to carry out a new kidnapping with similar characteristics in the department of Santander, with the purpose of later transferring their victims to the department of Norte de Santander.
Source: Press - National Army
