FBI accuses three Colombians of drugging US soldiers to rob them

Three Colombian citizens face federal charges in Miami for allegedly drugging two US Army soldiers in a Bogota bar three years ago to steal their credit and debit cards and cell phones, US authorities announced Friday.

Jeffersson Arango, Kenneth Uribe and Pedro Silva have been accused of kidnapping, assault and conspiracy for the alleged incident in March 2020 in which they drugged, kidnapped and robbed the soldiers, who hardly remember what happened.

According to court documents, the soldiers went to a luxurious bar in the Colombian capital one night shortly before the global lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic to drink, watch a soccer game and dance with local women.

Hours later, one of them appeared stumbling down a street in Bogotá and the other was found passed out in his apartment, both without their wallets, cell phones and other belongings. Blood tests showed that they had been drugged.

A joint investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, for its acronym in English) and the Colombian National Police found a surveillance video of a bar in which the three appear, and possibly others, pouring drugs into the drinks of the soldiers and then escorting them out of the bar after 02:00 in the morning to a waiting car. Bank security videos, among others, show Arango using his debit and credit cards at ATMs and stores, according to the US government.

After the identification of the three suspects, the Colombian police began to intercept their telephone communications in which they allegedly talked about robbing people who were being drugged in bars and lamented that the pandemic had put their plans on hold. Arango and Uribe were arrested in December. The documents do not show if Silva was also arrested.

FBI Special Agent Orlando Quant said in an affidavit that when he interviewed Arango, he admitted to drugging the soldiers with the others and taking them to a hotel. He recounted that he got the card number from one of her victims by convincing her that he had to pay something. He then told the drugged soldier that his cell phone was a payment platform and made him key in the number, which he later used to withdraw money.

Then they left the soldiers in the street. It was not clear how one of them got back to his apartment.

Arango appeared for the first time in federal court in Miami on Friday after his extradition. Court documents do not show whether Uribe or Silva have been extradited. The name of his lawyers is not mentioned either.

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