Colombia: After swallowing stolen banknotes, a Colombian police officer is in the hospital
By Ahmad Hadizat Omayoza, Mamos Nigeria
A Colombian cop has been confessed to clinic in the wake of gulping a roll of banknotes he coerced from a finance manager.
Despite the fact that the businessman had already reported the shakedown to Colombia’s anti-kidnapping and extortion unit, the officer had demanded payments in exchange for not arresting his victim on bogus charges.
The officer swallowed the cash in the hope of erasing the evidence when anti-corruption investigators arrived. However, the notes quickly became lodged in his throat, preventing him from breathing and sending him to an emergency clinic.
After swallowing the nine notes in Soacha, a sprawling suburb on the edge of the capital, Bogotá, videos showed the gray-faced officer pleading his innocence in a police van.
The officer can be heard saying, “I have received nothing, absolutely nothing, I don’t know what they are talking about,” as he recoiled and gasped for air.
As the choked officer receives medical attention, one anti-corruption officer can be heard saying, “We’ll have to take him to hospital to get him cleaned.”
The officer was taken to the hospital for stomach treatment after the notes, totaling 500,000 pesos (£95), were successfully removed by doctors.
The director of the local attorney’s office told local reporters, “The material with which the bills are made is a strong material, it is paper money, and it is not easily digested.”
A number of Simpsons-themed memes have taken aim at the policeman’s desperate attempt to evade justice in the blatant corruption case.
The clip appeared to offer schadenfreude to many Colombian police officers who have been forced to hand over cash to uniformed personnel. Corruption is widespread among Colombian police.
Camilo López, who runs a small business in Bogotá that is frequently pressured for cash by corrupt officers, stated, “It’s basically another income for them – their overtime – so it’s a bit of a relief to see them face justice.”
According to a report from Bogotá’s Blu Radio, the officer and a colleague had used false allegations of sexual crime to force the owner of the business to hand over a total of 2 million pesos.
The entrepreneur figured out how to figure out portion of the assets yet the cop was unsatisfied so took him to a police headquarters where he was held for two hours in the expectation of blackmailing everything.
According to the local prosecutor, the two officers are now the subject of a criminal investigation.
