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Alias el Tío is perhaps one of the most famous thieves in modern Colombian history. He is known mainly for the millionaire blow to the Valledupar headquarters of the Banco de la República, on October 16, 1994, where he took out, together with a group of experienced criminals, 24,072 million pesos (about 30 million dollars) without firing a single shot.
This story it recently became a series that shocked the world for the ingenuity and ability shown in the assault. Years later, the protagonists of this story were left behind bars, including their leader. However, they regained their freedom, and they were heard from again for a three-hour kidnapping for which they managed to get $ 1.6 million in Bogotá.
(You may be interested in: This is how $ 24 billion was stolen from a bank without firing a single shot)
It happened on July 28, 2016, in Engativá. After months of cautious intelligence, alias el Tío prepared a group of criminals he trusted, very experienced, to carry out a millimeter plan. The idea was to install a false checkpoint for the financial manager of a multinational company that had entered the Clinton list.
Uncle learned that, because he was on the list, the company, which did not stop billing, could not change the money it moved into dollars, and began to store it in its own facilities, in a shopping center in the north of the city. Investigators in this case suspect that someone within the company provided this information, which was well used.
“When he leaves his house, he is approached by false police officers and members of the CTI, who tell him that he has legal problems. In the vehicle they tell him that they will take him to the Andromeda office and that there he will be able to speak with his lawyer. On the way they blindfold him, they admit him to a house and they tell him that it is a collection office and that he has to pay 15 million dollars, that if he does not pay that they will kill his family”, Says an agent of the Gaula of the Bogotá Police who led the difficult task of tracking down this famous thief.
(Further: ‘The robbery of the century’ is one of the most watched series in the world)
Everything was organized. The financial manager was forced to call the money manager to say that he had finally found who would change the dollars, and that he should take them to an address near Unicentro, in the north of the city. If he said anything about the kidnapping, they would kill him and his relatives.
The agreed money (finally one million 600 thousand dollars) was taken to the fixed place and, half an hour after this, the financial manager was abandoned on Avenida Boyacá with Calle 53. The coup, apparently, had been perfect. There was no trace left, there was not a single shot.
The place where they installed the false checkpoint did not have security cameras, as well as where they delivered the money or where they left the victim, and all the members used new cell phones and sim cards; Tracing them was not going to be an easy task.
The authorities learned of the case once the businessman reported that he had requested the money because he had been kidnapped. Investigators focused on three key points, where they kidnapped him, where they delivered the money, and where they released the victim.
With information stored in telecommunications antennas, they were able to identify the cell line from which the calls came to agree on the payment, and established a connection between six telephone lines. However, they had not identified anyone behind them. An error by one of the assailants was the one that defined the course of this investigation.
“They downloaded a cell phone and used a personal sim, and the number of who it was was left, two targets were located, and we intercepted,” said the Gaula agent. On August 2, 2017, two people were captured for these tasks. Neither wanted to collaborate. They said they were afraid of who had hired them, because, according to them, he was someone very dangerous.
In 2018, three other alleged participants in the kidnapping were captured, and one of them decided to speak up. However, when he was going to make his contributions to the investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office, while in jail, he died, presumably from fluid retention.
The investigation was left to zero again. However, there were other captures and one of them, although afraid, revealed some details.
“He did not have the data very well but he knew that this person lived near Bulevar Niza, that he had participated in the robbery of the century of the Banco de la República de Valledupar, the Banco Agrario de Bogotá and one in Pasto. He told us that they called him the alias El Tío ”, said the researcher.
Little by little, the authorities concluded that there were eight participants in the kidnapping of the businessman. It was 2018 when one of the first captured, with two years deprived of liberty, decided to break his silence.
“‘The one who made the return they say’ El Tío ‘, participated in the robbery of the century, lives with his wife and children, he told me that he was going to place two taxis, he did not comply, I tell them where he lives and with whom He passes it on. ‘He gave us the name of a pool table, we went but saw nothing, he told us where the house was, on Bulevar Niza, “he revealed what the inmate confessed to the detective.
Who is El Tío?
The mayor of the Gaula of the Bogotá Police, who led this investigation for more than two years, acknowledges that except for the error of the sim card, the embezzlement of the multinational would have been clean. This uniformed man managed to understand the power of alias El Tío, a criminal who does not like firearms.
Those who worked for him respected and feared him. Proof of this was that at his apartment, in the north of Bogotá, on the day of the events, the suitcases with the dollars arrived at the agreed time and a ticket was not missing. Another of the protagonists of this kidnapping, and also of the Robo del Siglo, is alias El Sobrino, the right hand of ‘El Tío’, and who was ill. Even, the mayor said, the day of the kidnapping he had to go to a dialysis. He passed away in 2018 from cancer.
With all the evidence gathered, and with the address of his house, the Gaula prepared a search and capture operation against the leader of this criminal gang. The investigator who tracked him down came to his residence. Seeing him, El Tío offered him a red wine.
The captured man denied his participation in the kidnapping, but a judge protected him with a home security measure. There he remains as the trial stage progresses. His capture occurred last year.
“When we arrested him and made the raid on him, there we found a contract where he sold the rights that said to make a book or a series called Theft of the Century,” the detective closed the case.
(To continue reading: Losing your life for a bicycle: the risk of pedaling in Bogotá)
ÓSCAR MURILLO MOJICA
DRAFTING BOGOTÁ
On twitter: @OscarMurillom
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