The Office of the Attorney General demonstrated that the defendants demanded daily payments from the victims, in exchange for not attacking their integrity and allowing them to work.
The evidence presented by the Attorney General’s Office allowed a judge to sentence four members of the Los Rocha criminal organization to 26 years in prison, for their responsibility in intimidating and making illegal economic demands on vehicle owners and transporters in the north area of Bogotá.
The people involved are Luis Alejandro Vargas Rodríguez, Manuel Enrique Cruz Castellares, Krellyn Joxe Ramos Rojas y Julio César Peña Torrealba, the latter two were foreign citizens who were sentenced for the crimes of aggravated conspiracy to commit crimes and aggravated extortion.
The investigation led by a prosecutor appointed to the branch office in Bogotá (Seccional Bogotá) showed that the illegal network was involved in collecting daily extortions of 6,000 pesos from each informal driver in El Codito neighborhood in Usaquén and those who refused to pay the demands were subjected to threats, were physically attacked and had their vehicles damaged.
According to the judge’s decision, the defendants will serve their sentence in a prison. Moreover, a fine of 11,325 current legal minimum wages was imposed. Both foreign citizens, will be expelled from the national territory once they serve their sentence.
The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.