With grenades and bazookas: this is how they extort the merchants in the southwest of Bogotá

Concerned are the merchants of the El Amparo district, in the municipality of Kennedy (Bogota).

And it is no exception, because thanks to a video published by Noticias Caracol it became clear that these people are even threatened with long-range weapons, grenades and even bazookas.

In the images you can see a man, identified by the pseudonym ‘Antonio’, which He holds a rifle in his left hand and a grenade in his right. order the owner of a public body who refuses to pay it.

According to the Bogotá Metropolitan Police, the registration in question is essential for investigators seeking to dismantle the gang that has plagued this area of ​​the city, whose modus operandi is, according to them, fully identified.

Noticias Caracol also showed another security video in his report in which it was recorded when another extortionist, apparently from the same criminal organization, shot at the facade of a business in the same neighborhood.

On the other hand, El Tiempo reported that this situation does not only occur in Kennedy, but also inThere are complaints from citizens claiming to have been harassed by groups operating in Los Mártires, Santa Fe and Barrios Unidosand that even orders them to leave their homes.

“Some guys came to my house, in a building I have in the Santa Fe neighborhood, and they told me I had to let it go, that it was an order from ‘los Viejos’ or ‘los Boyacos’, and that I was only 25 hours to go from there or that there would be consequences (…) I went to the police station, but they didn’t help me there and they just told me they would be watching in case something happened. The next day about 10 men came to my house, two of them Colombians and the rest Venezuelans, they gave me two hours to leave with all my belongings and my family. My son was kidnapped for a while and was locked up in his room”, One of the victims told the aforementioned newspaper.

These criminal acts contrast with the most recent data provided by the Secretariat of Security, which indicates that so far in 2022 extortion was reduced by 13.36%. Likewise, shoplifting of 30.31%.

To reveal it is a recent search carried out, according to the commissioner Diana Diago, that more than 141,000 high-impact crimes have occurred so far this year.

the top of insecurity is driven by the city of Kennedy, where the crime of personal theft occurs most frequently: over 7 thousand citizens. While in second place there is the municipality of Suba, where the personal theft rate is 60.52 per 10,000 inhabitants, unlike in 2020, which was 52.54 per 10,000 inhabitants.

The list is completed by the municipality of engativewhere the greatest crimes are thefts from people, in which they are reported 7,584 cases and cell phone theft, with an approximate figure of 3,705 cases. Bolivar city is in fourth place, according to data presented by the spokesperson for the Democratic Center. In this area of ​​Bogotá there have been 3431 cases of violence in the family have been reported to date.

Finally, in this scale is the Bosa city, where they were presented nearly 4 thousand people robbed. For Diago, in this area, intolerance and city coexistence have maintained a distant relationship, as there are 1,320 cases of personal injury.

KEEP READING