A Gang Built a Fake Police Station in a Basement in Chile and Used It to Kidnap People
CHILE · CRIME
Key Facts
- —The setup A fake precinct of Chile’s investigative police, built in the basement of a building.
- —The detained Seven people, including a former prosecutor, Vinko Fodich, and serving police officers.
- —The victims Chinese nationals, held and threatened with fictitious investigations by American authorities.
- —The props Police uniforms, unauthorised firearms and photographs of Donald Trump hung on the walls.
- —The catch Fodich was acting as lawyer for the man he is accused of helping to extort people alongside.
- —The status Three were ordered into preventive detention. The rest were held for a Saturday hearing.
The uniforms were real enough to work. So were three of the men wearing them, who serve in Chile’s investigative police, and the lawyer who allegedly ran the operation used to be a state prosecutor.
A gang in Chile built a fake police station in a building basement. They used it to detain people and demand money from them.
Seven people have been detained. Three of them serve in Chile’s investigative police, and one is a former state prosecutor.
Cooperativa, Emol and Meganoticias reported the case this week. The detentions and custody hearings ran across Thursday and Friday.
How the Operation Worked
The set was assembled between 3 and 5 August. It was made to pass as a precinct of the Policía de Investigaciones, Chile’s plain-clothes detective force.
The men wore PDI uniforms and displayed firearms they were not authorised to carry. Photographs of Donald Trump were hung on the walls.
That last detail sounds absurd and was functional. The victims were told they were subjects of an investigation by American federal authorities.
The threat was invented. No such investigation existed, and the props were there to make the story credible to people unfamiliar with Chilean policing.
Who the Victims Were
The victims are Chinese nationals named in reporting as Mingkai Fu and Mingxia Fu, who are siblings. A brother-in-law was also involved.
They were falsely detained on 6 August. Payment demands followed on 7 and 8 August.
Cooperativa reported an initial demand of around 300 million Chilean pesos per victim, about US$320,000. That was later reduced to 200 million pesos, some US$213,000.
A promissory note of roughly 43 million pesos, about US$46,000, features separately. The figures are as reported by Cooperativa.
The sum actually extorted, according to Cooperativa, was 30 million pesos in cash, roughly US$32,000. Conversions use the rate of 12 September.
The Former Prosecutor
Vinko Fodich is a former prosecutor who was working as a lawyer. His client was Yongjie Chen, described in reporting as the leader of a group known as the Chen clan.
That is the conflict at the centre of the case. A lawyer for one party is accused of participating in the extortion of others.
Fodich, along with a PDI inspector and a third man, was ordered into preventive detention across Thursday and Friday. His defence accepted the detention temporarily while preparing appeals.
The remaining four were held for a hearing on Saturday. Outlets differ on exactly which three officers were involved, and that discrepancy has not been resolved.
What the Police Said
The director of the PDI, Eduardo Cerna, addressed the involvement of former officials. He said it pained the force that former officers had strayed from ethics, probity and doctrine.
He added that there is no place in the institution for such conduct. That is a standard formulation and it does not answer the harder question.
The harder question is how serving officers took part. A fake police station staffed partly by real police is not an impersonation problem.
It is an internal control problem, and Chile has had several of those this year. The Supreme Court spent the same week removing eleven judges over a separate scandal.
Why This Case Travels
Extortion of Chinese nationals in Latin America is not new, and it works on a specific vulnerability. Recent migrants often do not know how local policing looks or what rights they hold.
The set only needed to convince someone who had never seen a real precinct. Adding genuine officers and genuine uniforms closed the remaining gap.
Chile has seen a sharp rise in organised extortion over the past three years. Cases involving foreign victims are systematically under-reported because victims fear immigration consequences.
The case will now move through custody hearings and a formal investigation period. Nobody has been convicted, and the accounts published so far come from prosecutors and police.
More: Chile news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the PDI?
The Policía de Investigaciones de Chile is the country’s plain-clothes detective force, responsible for criminal investigation. It is separate from the uniformed Carabineros.
Who is Vinko Fodich?
A former Chilean state prosecutor working as a defence lawyer. He was ordered into preventive detention this week over the alleged kidnapping and extortion.
Have the accused been convicted?
No. They have been detained and some placed in preventive detention while the investigation proceeds. The allegations come from prosecutors.
Why were photographs of Donald Trump used?
The victims were told they faced an investigation by American authorities. The props were part of making that fabricated threat believable.
Sources: Cooperativa, Emol, Meganoticias.
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