The Technical Investigation Team (CTI) of the Office of the Attorney General and the Gaula / Colombian Police, captured six people, four in Bogotá and two in Yacopí, Cundinamarca, who in November last year kidnapped Humberto Sarmiento Villate, a university student.
The student of mechanical engineering in the Universidad Sergio Arboleda was kidnapped on November 9 through the intermediary of Cristian, a former employee of the company owned by Sarmiento Villate’s father, who gained the victim’s trust.
According to the evidences collected by the Unit of Prosecutors’ Offices against Kidnapping and Extortion, Cristian, together with one of his accomplices, picked Humberto Sarmiento Villate up on two motorbikes and started journey from Bogota, via, Chia, Zipaquirá, Pacho, reaching rural area of Yacopí, where other members of the criminal organization waiting for them.
On November 13, the kidnappers contacted the student’s family telling them that alias Andrés, second in command of the front 26 FARC, was speaking and that her boss was Cristian from Los Llanos Orientales/Meta and Vichada. During the communication they affirmed to have in their possession Humberto Sarmiento, they demanded the sum of Cop $5,000 billion to release him and through PIN messages they sent two photographs of the victim with his neck and hands chained.
The investigation established that the Farc did not carry out the kidnapping, but it was an organized crime group, which planned and executed the kidnapping and subsequent transfer of the victim to a rural area of the municipality of Yacopí, Cundinamarca.
The six captured, identified as José Obdulio Cruz Linares, Mónica Ocampo, Ferney Orozco Torres, Flaminio Morales Ramirez, Jairo Ferney Martínez Pineda and Argelio Guarque Anzola, were charged by Prosecutor’s office with counts for aggravated kidnapping for ransom, smuggling, manufacturing and illegal possession of firearms.
During the legalization of the capture, the supervising judge declared illegal the detention of Guarque Anzola, decision which was appealed by the Prosecutor’s Office.