Kidnapping and extortion in Estación Central: 19-year-old young man murdered and family paid ransom without knowing it
Martín Pérez Burgos was abducted on Monday in Estación Central and his body found in Colina on Friday. Five Venezuelans were detained; the family paid part of the ransom when he was already dead.
Family of Martín Pérez negotiated ransom while he had already been dead for hours
The body of Martín Pérez Burgos, 19, was found on Friday in the commune of Colina after days of anguish, extortion and negotiations which, according to authorities, took place when the victim had already been murdered. This was confirmed by Carabineros and the Public Ministry, according to canal9.cl. Five people of Venezuelan nationality were detained in the framework of the investigation headed by the Metropolitan ECOH Fiscal Office and the OS9 of Carabineros.
Martín's relatives saw him for the last time around 21:00 on Monday 26 October, on Placilla street, in Estación Central. Upon having no news of him during the early hours of Tuesday, they filed a complaint for kidnapping. From that moment on, police forces carried out proceedings in different communes of the Metropolitan Region to identify vehicles and sites of interest, with the support of the criminalistics laboratory of Carabineros.
The captors requested 50 million pesos from the young man's relatives in exchange for his release. To pressure them, they sent a video in which Martín appeared alive and with a gun pointing to his head. In the recording, the young man says: "Dad, they're going to kill me if you don't pay". His family handed over part of the demanded money, but then stopped receiving signals from the kidnappers.
The acting head prosecutor of the Metropolitan ECOH, Pablo Sabaj, revealed that analyses from the criminalistics laboratory determined that Martín was murdered a few hours after being kidnapped. General Jaime Velasco, director of Drug Control and Criminal Investigation of Carabineros, specified that death occurred in the first hours following the abduction. This means that all extortive communications were carried out when the young man was no longer alive.
"All the negotiations that were conducted concerning payment, what was requested in the extortion, were conducted with the victim already deceased, according to the evidence we have," stated prosecutor Sabaj. He added that the outcome was not due to a disagreement in the negotiations: the perpetrators continued demanding money despite the fact that Martín had died.
Regarding how the young man ended up with his captors, prosecutor Sabaj indicated that "the young man goes voluntarily to Estación Central in a dynamic that I cannot yet confirm for you and in that context he meets with these people". Through deception, Martín boarded the vehicle that was subsequently used to kidnap him. One of the hypotheses being considered by the Fiscal Office is that the meeting took place in the context of a drug purchase.
The detentions were carried out in different stages. General Velasco explained that raids were conducted in several communes and that the first apprehensions occurred linked to the crime being investigated. Given that the victim had still not appeared, proceedings continued uninterrupted. On Thursday a third detention was completed and on Friday two more people were arrested, considered among those most directly involved.
Prosecutor Sabaj detailed that four of the five detained would be directly implicated in the kidnapping and that one of those apprehended on Friday would probably be the one who killed the victim. Among the five charged there are people with regular and irregular migration status. Sabaj also noted that in cases of this nature, initial planning and first instructions typically come from inside a penitentiary facility, and that an investigation is underway to determine whether the detained persons are part of a criminal organisation.
During the proceedings two people, apparently foreign nationals, were also detained in an abandoned factory in Quinta Normal. At the location a firearm and drugs were seized, although at that time it was not confirmed whether those individuals had a direct connection to Martín's kidnapping.
The general director of Carabineros, Marcelo Araya, noted that the investigation was progressing favourably, though he warned that the sensitive nature of the case prevented providing further information to the press.
The case generated shock in the Metropolitan Region due to the conduct of the captors, who continued extorting the victim's family even after having murdered him. The inquiry continues in order to establish the degree of involvement of each of the five detained and to determine whether there were more people involved in the kidnapping and murder of Martín Pérez Burgos.
Source: Google News CL — Crime