With 'false service' they deceived, kidnapped and extorted family in La Calera

A Bogotá family experienced moments of panic, after they were extorted by a criminal gang requesting false services in La Calera, a municipality located on the outskirts of the capital. Julián González works by polarizing glass in cars and homes, so the criminals contacted him, making him believe that they were hiring him to do his work in a farm located in the El Volcán sector, in that municipality.

To the newspaper El Tiempo, González told him that the day before he received a call from a man who asked him for information about the cost of his work and told him to go the next day to the alleged house. “We were talking all that afternoon and he told me if I could go the next day. I said yes. There were 140 meters of tinted paper to install,” said the victim, adding that the work was paid at $5,000,000, which was a good opportunity for him and his family.

This is how on March 24, González moved to the site with the materials and two other workers; however, the road to the farm was getting farther and farther. He pointed out that after passing the center of the municipality, they had to drive 20 more minutes along a trail. “It gave me distrust because the place was very lonely, it felt a bad energy. I managed to send the location to my wife.”

After communicating with whoever hired him to let him know they had arrived, the car was hit by a motorcycle carrying two armed men. These subjects identified themselves as ELN guerrillas, under the orders of commander 'Antonio', and asked González and his companions to explain why they were in that place so far away, according to them, violating five guerrilla security rings.

González, as El Tiempo portrayed, thought it was a bad joke, but to further intimidate them the armed men made them talk to the alleged commander and pointed out to a third armed person behind the car who was going to 'shoot' them if they didn't do what was asked of them. “They intimidated us, they told us they were going to kill us, they asked us for our ID numbers and they told us to turn off our cell phones,” he said.

What the worker did not know was that while he was living these moments of terror in La Calera, in Bogotá his wife received WhatsApp messages telling her that she should give them 30 million pesos (10 for each) if she wanted her partner and workers to be released. He had given them his wife's number himself, since they asked for a contact with which they could verify that they were not cops or spies.

The woman became desperate, because the family had no money because they had spent $1.2 million for their children's school pension to buy the materials, because it seemed to them that with the business for five million they could recover that money. Even so, by borrowing money from her neighbors, she managed to collect and assign them $1.3 million, which for the criminals was too little and, finally, they told her that they wanted 5 million pesos to free her husband alone.

For three hours the woman was extorted, while the La Calera workers were threatened and insulted by the alleged guerrilla fighters. At one point, the two motorized men abandoned them and behind the vehicle was the other person who supposedly had a rifle, but the workers decided to seize the moment and flee, “we thought quickly about getting in the car and running away and we did so. We shot out. My wife managed to call the police, but she didn't call anyone there.”

After getting rid of the criminals, González wanted to file the official complaint with the authorities. However, he told Noticias Caracol that when he told the authorities what happened, he was surprised that they already knew who was behind this modus operandi in the area, it is a man who is being held in the Picaleña prison and his subordinates, who use the false service and take the victims to these remote areas.

“They tell me that he is a man who, when they went to check his cell, they found up to more than 1500 simcards, which has data on the wall about Nequi, Daviplata, that is, with the accounts that they work with,” González explained to the news program.

The Police Gaula explained that these people obtain workers' data through social networks, when they offer their services, they make them go to remote places and there they pose as members of armed groups to instill more terror. Finally, by means of threats they manage to receive large sums of money immediately or to give them money in person.

The authorities recommended going to line 195 to report these cases, before giving in to extortion. So far in 2022, the Gaula indicated that it has captured 44 criminals who use the false service and have rescued 8 citizens from these events.

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