Four people were captured, allegedly involved in the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz, father of soccer player Luis Díaz, who was in the hands of the ELN guerrilla for 12 days. According to the Police, this achievement is due to work by the Colombian authorities with the support of the United Kingdom. In any case, this iconic kidnapping evidenced the lack of control of the guerrilla bases by the leadership of this organization, considered terrorist by the United States and the European Union; and, at the same time, it showed the repercussion of that vacuum on the outcome of the peace talks of Gustavo Petro’s government.
First modification:
3 min
“In the development of operation ‘freedom’ we captured 4 people allegedly responsible for the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz,” the Police stated on their X (formerly Twitter) account. The captures were made in the Caribbean department of La Guajira, where the soccer player’s father was kidnapped on October 28.
In the development of operation “freedom” we captured 4 people allegedly responsible for the kidnapping of Luis Manuel Díaz. Thanks to coordinated work with @FiscaliaColCTI and authorities of the #United Kingdomwhich allowed the dismantling of the criminal group “Los primos”.… pic.twitter.com/Dl2ADt0hTz
— Colombian Police (@PoliciaColombia) November 11, 2023
According to the investigation, the Liverpool player’s father may have been kidnapped for common crime, who then handed him over to the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla; From there arises the relationship with the criminal group Los Primos.
To dismantle it, “coordinated work” was required “with the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office and its Technical Investigation Corps (CTI)” and authorities from the United Kingdom, in which nine raids were carried out in the towns of Maicao and Barrancas. Three of the detained people had arrest warrant and another was arrested in flagrante delicto, according to the Police.
We launched ‘Operation Freedom’ on the same day of the kidnapping, which allowed us to identify the alleged masterminds and perpetrators, including the criminal group ‘Los Primos’, which commits crimes through the modality of ‘outsourcing’. criminal, stated the director of the Police, General William René Salamanca.
The prosecution speaks of three people involved, and the fourth?
The Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, indicated that three of the alleged kidnappers of Mr. Luis Manuel Díaz and his wife (Cilenis Marulanda), released on October 28, the day of the kidnapping, will be presented before judges in the next few hours.
#ATTENTION | Those allegedly responsible for the kidnapping of the parents of soccer player Luis Fernando Díaz fall. They would be involved in the surveillance and monitoring of the victims to plan and execute the criminal action. Product of the articulated work carried out by a… pic.twitter.com/dySpSQS1Xh
— Colombian Prosecutor’s Office (@FiscaliaCol) November 11, 2023
Identified with the aliases “Marlon” and “El Negro”, two of the detainees were arrested at dawn this Saturday in Maicao (La Guajira), and a third, Yerdinson José Bolívar, alias “Arenca”, was captured last October 31 in Barrancas, according to the prosecutor, who referred only to three of those captured, who will be charged with the crimes of simple kidnapping, extortion and theft, according to the prosecutor.
“All the evidence shows that these men participated in the planning and logistics of the kidnapping of the parents of our soccer player ‘Lucho Díaz’. Apparently they carried out surveillance and monitoring to know the movements of the victims and establish the way in which they They would be deceived and later kidnapped on the afternoon of October 28,” he indicated.
The father of the Liverpool player was handed over on Thursday to a humanitarian commission of the UN Mission in Colombia and the Catholic Church in the foothills of the Perijá mountain range, near Barrancas.
Luis Manuel Días, 58, said he will continue living in Colombia.
Conflict experts agree that his kidnapping reveals the atomization of the ELN, which generates a lack of leadership among its leadership with respect to its bases and, therefore, a lack of control over the decisions made by its leaders, which in turn ends affecting any type of agreement related to ongoing peace talks between the group and the government of President Gustavo Petro, which is trying to end the conflict with this guerrilla, which is why a six-month ceasefire has been in effect since August. Among other things, this problem has been one of the reasons why the approaches of previous governments, which tried to dialogue with this guerrilla, failed, as, for example, was the case of Juan Manuel Santos.
Considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, the ELN is financed through kidnapping, drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion, according to institutions that are responsible for its study, such as InSight Crime.
#Colombia #people #captured #kidnapping #father #soccer #player #Luis #Díaz