For nearly two years, a gang turned corridors entering and exiting Bogotá into ambush scenes. At night or early morning he would damage the travelers’ tires and wait for the vehicle to stop. Then armed men appeared and beat and detained the occupants to even steal the money from their accounts.
The Traffic and Transportation Directorate He followed the trail of the structure known as ‘Los Pinchallantas’. The investigation attributes nine incidents, 21 victims and losses close to 750 million pesos. Eleven alleged members were captured during 12 raids in Bogotá and Soacha.
One of the most violent episodes occurred at the end of April 2026, near the Mondoñedo tollbooth. A family traveling to Bogotá stopped when a tire on their truck got a puncture. The driver, his wife and a son got out to change it before the rain increased.
Within seconds, six men on motorcycles surrounded the vehicle. They took advantage of the darkness and isolation to intercept the family. They beat her inside the truck and, under threats, took her to an excavation area in Soacha.
Seven people, including two minors and two older adults, were subdued in the mud, cold and rain. The attackers took off their shoes, tied them up, and held them for about seven hours. The beatings, insults and threats continued without them being able to escape.
Four dataphones and 16 cell phones were seized during the operation against the structure. Photo:Traffic Police
The criminals checked cell phones and banking applications. They tried to unlock the equipment using facial recognition and demanded passwords to make transfers. Some women were hit in the face and head with the phones when, in the shock, they could not remember the passwords.
The hold lasted until around four in the morning. Several presented symptoms of hypothermia; An elderly woman suffered an injury to her arm and an eight-year-old girl, according to her relatives, was left in a state of muteness. The truck appeared abandoned in Soacha.
“We felt fear, helplessness and a lot of anguish. We were beaten, mistreated and humiliated,” said one victim. For the mother, the worst thing was seeing her children terrified without being able to protect them. From that night on, traveling by road stopped being the same.
The case was not isolated. On May 3, at least 15 people were detained and three vehicles were stolen on a rural road between Soacha and La Mesa. Governor Jorge Emilio Rey He warned that the criminals moved to rural sectors to evade controls on the main road.
The Transit Police linked the attacks. Photo:Private file
The background showed a very clear method. According to the Police, The band performed on the La Mesa–Bogotá, Bogotá–Villavicencio and Bogotá–Tunja roads.. Its members threw tacks and nails or used pointed pipes to damage tires and force a stop.
They preferred wooded, solitary and dark sections. When the driver checked the damage, they intimidated the occupants with firearms. Then, they took them to remote places, immobilized them and took away their property; Sometimes they also took the vehicle.
The theft continued in cards, digital wallets and financial applications. “They were so scoundrels that they even used dataphones,” Rey said. According to the governor, they forced them to enter passwords, transferred the money and then withdrew it.
The modality, schedules and corridors allowed Transit and Transportation to relate the complaints. With intelligence information, the Judicial Police reconstructed the operation and individualized the functions and participation of each alleged member.
They were so scoundrels that they even used dataphones
king georgeGovernor of Cundinamarca.
For months, investigators intercepted communications, received sworn statements and conducted photographic reconnaissance. Thus they identified 11 people and a possible connection with another structure dedicated to the theft of cargo vehicles and the assault of transporters.
The evidence was presented before a judge, who issued arrest warrants. The operational phase included 12 search and seizure procedures in Bogotá and Soacha, with judicial, police and military units.
Four dataphones, a truck, a traumatic weapon, 16 cell phones and pointed tubes allegedly used to tap vehicles were seized. They also found straps that, according to the investigation, were used to immobilize the victims.
The Mechanized Cavalry Group No. 10 Tequendama of the Army, the Sijín, the COPES of the Police, the National Directorate against Organized Crime of the Prosecutor’s Office and the CTI Cundinamarca participated.
Those captured must answer for aggravated extortionate kidnapping, simple kidnapping, conspiracy to commit a crime, qualified and aggravated robbery, and trafficking, manufacturing and carrying of firearms. Justice will determine your responsibility.
“We have dismantled the criminal gang ‘Los Pinchallantas’,” Governor Rey announced when delivering the balance sheet. The investigations did not conclude with arrests: the authorities seek to establish all the attacks and victims and verify if some defendants participated in recent cases on the Northern Highway under a similar modality.
The deployment was part of operation ‘Escudo de La Sabana’, which also hit ‘Los Rápidos’. This second structure, made up of six people, used an ambulance to simulate accidents in the Mosquera-Girardot corridor and assault those who stopped to provide help with weapons.
The investigation against ‘Los Rápidos’ began after the assault on a vehicle that was transporting 20 tons of technological elements, valued at around 2,000 million pesos, on November 12, 2025. The reaction of the Transit Police allowed the vehicle and all of the merchandise to be recovered.
Five raids coordinated with the Special Prosecutor’s Office 4 for Structure and Support allowed the capture of its six members, who were in prisons. Two cargo vehicles and the ambulance allegedly used in the assaults were confiscated. Thus, the combined result of ‘Escudo de La Sabana’ reached 17 captured.
For those who survived the ambushes, the captures do not erase what happened. “They extended their hand to us, they took this case on as their own and they fought for long months,” another victim said about the investigators. The mother attacked in April summed up the scope of the result: knowing that they were not forgotten and that their case did not go unpunished.
CAROL MALAVER
DEPUTY EDITOR BOGOTÁ
Write to us at carmal@eltiempo.com
