They captured a young man who extorted a woman so as not to publish intimate photos in Antioquia

Technology crimes are increasingly common in Colombia. Currently, videos and photos are at risk because privacy is one of the things that have been lost with the arrival of social networks. In Antioquia, the Prosecutor's Office arrested a 31-year-old foreigner, because he threatened a 20-year-old girl with making intimate photos public on social networks.

According to the authorities, and the testimony of the woman who was being extorted, the defendant would have demanded payment of 500,000 pesos in exchange for keeping the photographic material safe, otherwise the scammer would send the photos of the 20-year-old girl to her relatives and post them on social media as he would retaliate.

After learning about the subject, the authorities began a search that will help them find out the whereabouts of the offender and protect the rights to privacy of women. After a long process, the authorities found the man's whereabouts and he was captured in the Manrique neighborhood, in the eastern part of the capital of Antioquia. In addition, he was prosecuted for the crime of attempted aggravated extortion.

A similar case was revealed in Bogotá at the beginning of 2022, where criminals not content with stealing a young man's belongings, decided to blackmail him along with his partner for information they found on his mobile device.

According to the authorities in the case, a 20-year-old girl began to receive messages asking her for money so as not to publish intimate photos, this after her boyfriend was the victim of a cell phone robbery. The blackmail and extortion did not take long, as it happened a few hours after his partner had the electronic equipment where he had information about his private life and that of his girlfriend was taken away.

The criminals sent a message to the young woman threatening to publish photos of her if she didn't pay a sum of five million pesos. Until then, she was not sure where the threats came from, but she realized that the photos were the ones her partner had kept and were only on her cell phone, so she quickly realized that they were the same people who had stolen her boyfriend.

“I have more videos, I have your face (Facebook), the number of your mom, your brothers, your cousins, that is, I know everything about your family, love”, were the messages that thieves used to intimidate women.

The woman decided to file the complaint immediately with the appropriate authorities and who carried out an operation in order to apprehend the offenders. “The criminals told the young woman that the money should be delivered to the Chicalá neighborhood, south of the city, where the Gaula investigators arrived to capture in flagrante the two extortionists of foreign nationality, who arrived on a motorcycle to collect the money resulting from the demand done to his victim,” said the police.

In 2021, the authorities carried out an operation against extortion networks that operated inside prisons, as a large part of these crimes were found to be committed from prison centers. The Police assured that the raid was carried out surprisingly and simultaneously in 19 prisons. There, authorities found hidden more than 1,138 simcards, 3,500 grams of narcotic drugs, 453 sharps weapons, 21 SD memories, five modems, 64 notebooks with names of unidentified people, about 2 million pesos, 382 cell phones and 524 cell phone accessories.

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