A Prosecutor assigned to the National Unit against Kidnapping and Extortion has presented before the Seventh Special Penal Circuit Judge in Bogotá, acting as Presiding Judge, witnesses who have identified a number of members of a gang in Santa Fe neighborhood, where pedestrians were taken into a building by those criminals to torture them with the purpose of obtaining their debit and credit card PIN.
According to Technical Investigation Team, “CTI”, transvestites and prostitutes were part of the gang, who developed criminal actions between 2010 and 2011.
One of the witnesses, at the oral proceedings hearing, has stated that he was approached by a woman about 20 years old, who seduced and took him into a boarding house, where he was undressed and tortured by three men with electric shocks, and he was threatened with “machetes”, until obtain his savings accounts numbers and then stolen more than three million Colombian pesos through an ATM.
According to inquiries, victims were tied with shoelaces and certain kind of clothes and remained in such condition for several hours, while other members of the gang withdrew money from an ATM located on 22nd and Seventh Street in Bogotá downtown.
In the hearing, videos have been shown by “CTI”, which a number of sexual workers were identified. At present, they are being prosecuted as alleged perpetrators for the offences of criminal association, aggravated theft, kidnapping and torture.
Likewise, in judicial proceedings, the Prosecutor’s Office has submitted artifacts used to do electrical discharges, “machetes” and firearms used against the victims.