The kidnapping is said to have taken place when the parents, Luis Manuel Díaz and Cilenis Marulanda, were traveling in a car in the hometown of Barranca and armed people on a motorcycle stopped the car and then kidnapped the couple.
However, the mother could be rescued after a couple of hours, when the vehicle had been driven out into the countryside.
– They left the vehicle and the mother there. It could be that they thought it was too complicated to have two kidnapped people with them – that you have to travel a long distance – and therefore chose to take only one of them with them, says SVT’s Latin America correspondent Tigran Feiler in Morgonstudion.
Reward of half a million
According to the police, four people are suspected of involvement in the kidnapping. One concern is that the father may have been taken to an inaccessible area on the border with Venezuela that has a long history of organized crime activity. There are also rumors that the father has been transferred to the Venezuelan side.
– That would mean that the task of getting hold of him would be significantly more complicated, as a completely different country would have to be involved in that case. The authorities have therefore tried to establish some kind of presence along the entire border area in order to try to prevent the father from being brought over, says Tigran Feiler.
The police have now issued a reward of half a million kroner for anyone who provides information that can lead to the father being found.
Hear more about how the search goes in the clip above.