A Colombian man who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and robbing two U.S. soldiers after drugging them at a Bogotá bar was sentenced Tuesday in Miami federal court to 48 years in prison.
Jeffersson Arango Castellanos – whose nickname is “Harry Potter” – was effectively sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge Michael Moore after pleading guilty in January to a six-count indictment accusing him of conspiring to commit an international protected person kidnapping and related crimes.
Moore gave Arango a harsher sentence than the 30 years federal prosecutors had sought in a sentencing memo, saying one of the U.S. soldiers had suffered from “multiple mental illnesses” and had been forced to retire early from the military.
Arango, 36, was extradited to the United States in May 2023. One of his co-conspirators – alleged partner Kenny Julieth Uribe Chiran – remains at large. The alleged getaway driver, Pedro Jose Silva Ochoa, was extradited to Miami in April and has pleaded not guilty.
According to a factual brief detailing the prosecution’s case, the two unnamed soldiers were at the Colombian Pub, a sports bar in the upscale Zona T area, around 11 p.m. on March 5, 2020, just around the start of the global COVID -19 pandemic. . Silva, driving a green Renault 9, dropped Arango and Uribe off at the Colombian Pub, drove away and waited.
At the bar, the couple found their targets: the American soldiers.
According to the Colombian National Police, video surveillance showed Arango and Uribe approaching the two soldiers several times at the Colombian Pub.
“At a given moment, [Arango] approached the victims at the pub and, without their knowledge, incapacitated, intoxicated, and otherwise rendered the victims defenseless by slipping drugs into their drinks,” according to the offering from Assistant U.S. Attorney Bertila Fernandez. In a statement to police, Arango “explained that he used drugs in paste or liquid form to put in his victims’ drinks.”
Toxicology tests showed that the two soldiers had benzodiazepines in their systems.
Benzodiazepines are depressants that slow the central nervous system and can cause drowsiness and a relaxed mood, but when overdosed can cause extreme drowsiness, confusion, impaired coordination, impaired reflexes, respiratory depression, coma and possibly death, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“The victims reported buying a few beers, listening to music and dancing alone,” an FBI statement said. One of the victims “recalled seeing two women taking ‘selfies’ and he offered to take pictures for them. He remembered asking if he could put his beer on their table to take the photos. Neither victim could remember what happened after that encounter.”
On March 6, around 2:30 a.m., the soldiers and the couple left the Colombian Pub together. The drugged soldiers stumbled and had trouble keeping their balance, according to the listing. Uribe put her arm around the waist of one of the soldiers and he put his arm on her shoulder. Arango and Uribe sent their victims to Silva’s waiting Renault 9 and they drove away with the soldiers in the car.
There, according to prosecutors, the trio took the soldier’s wallets, debit and credit cards and cell phones. Uribe further “manipulated” one of the soldiers into revealing his bank card PIN.
Over the next few hours, the trio drove the drunken soldiers around Bogotá, using the stolen credit cards and ATM cards at numerous locations where they collected cash: $350 from two transactions and another total of $250 from two other transactions of about $125 each. The credit card was used later that morning at a meat shop and a tire shop.
Around 6:45 a.m., the trio dropped off one of the victims on the street called Calle 25. Video footage shows the soldier stumbling and falling on the street as Uribe lifts him off the street and leads him to a sidewalk where he was left. A passerby saw the victim staggering and called police, who then took the soldier to a hospital where he was treated and released. He eventually returned to his apartment, where he was met by U.S. Embassy staff, according to the listing.
The second soldier was also dropped off in the same area and was found by a taxi driver who helped him to his apartment, where video footage showed him stumbling on his way to his apartment.
