An ad posted on Facebook, offering a bargain for the sale of a used vehicle, was the bait that the transnational gang Tren de Aragua used to kidnap eleven unsuspecting individuals outside the walls of Cúcuta.
One of the victims took the bait on March 31, when a Messenger notification (Facebook chat) appeared on his cell phone, in which an unknown user included him in a group offering a 2007 model NPR Plus truck.
“I’m interested in the cart, the truth is that it looks well maintained,” wrote the buyer, and immediately afterwards they asked for his cell phone number to continue the conversation on WhatsApp. They shared photos of the car and made an appointment for him in front of the Cúcuta transport terminal, so that he could see it in person.
The next day he was met by a woman, who was supposed to guide him to the parking lot where the truck was. They boarded a taxi headed for a squatter neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, and several criminals showed up.
The victim was stripped of his credit cards and phone, and taken to a ranch of boards. Lunch and dinner were brutal beatings, while her relatives were threatened to pay $80 million for her release.
The Police Gaula rescued him before the payment was made, but the same fate did not accompany the others affected.
Sources from that police group told EL COLOMBIANO that, using this same modality of Facebook ads, the Aragua Train kidnapped eleven people from 2022 to date.
The victims, seduced by the offer, arrived in Cúcuta from Valledupar, Acacías, Tunja, Ocaña, Cali, Neiva, Bucaramanga and Medellín. They summoned all of them outside the bus terminal or the airport.
The kidnapped were taken to ranches in invasion settlements, where they stayed from one to two nights. They looted their bank cards and their relatives asked for between $80 and $120 million, that is, the agreed value for the truck. Those close to seven captives paid those sums.
The Gaula rescued eight of those affected. In one of those operations he saved three members of the same family from Bucaramanga, who were gagged in a house in the Cucuteño neighborhood of La Libertad.
Colonel Elver Sanabria, head (e) of the Anti-kidnapping Directorate, indicated that 14 members of the gang have been captured for these crimes: six in flagrante delicto and eight by court order in Operation Anzú.
El Tren de Aragua is a band originally from Venezuela, with networks in Colombia, Peru, Chile and Brazil. In our country, cells have been detected in Cúcuta, Bogotá, Aguachica (Cesar) and Ipiales (Nariño), made up of Colombians and Venezuelan migrants.
2023-05-05 04:37:24
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