A Colombian man has been extradited to the United States to face charges of incapacitating and kidnapping two American soldiers on temporary duty in the Colombian capital of Bogota.

Jeffersson Arango Castellanos, criminal alias “Harry Potter,” appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Friday. 

Mr. Arango, along with co-conspirators, is accused of drugging the two soldiers as they watched a sporting event at a pub in Bogota on March 5, 2020. 

The two troops’ beer was spiked with clonazepam, a sedative and central nervous system depressant of the benzodiazepine class of drugs, by a pair of women working with Mr. Arango, according to Spanish-language and Miami-based news site Infobae. 

Security video showed one soldier dancing with an unknown woman, and the other talking to a man in the back of the pub at around 1:25 a.m. local time, after the two Americans had already been drugged.

Later footage at around 2:27 a.m. shows the pair stumbling while attempting to walk outside the pub, and shows them walking with the suspects at 2:34 a.m.

The soldiers lost consciousness, and had been separated by the time each awoke on March 6. The victims were robbed of their valuables, as well as credit and debit card information.

Security footage elsewhere in Bogota purportedly showed Mr. Arango taking money out of ATM machines and making purchases.

Video posted on Twitter by the Colombian El Tiempo newspaper purports to show one of the suspects leaving one of the victims on the street on the morning of March 6.

El Tiempo identified three co-conspirators of Mr. Arango: Kenny Uribe, alias “Hellen”, Himmer Aguirre, and Pedro Silva. 
 
Mr. Arango, Mr. Uribe, and Mr. Aguirre, according to El Tiempo, took plea deals in a separate but similar drugged robbery case in which a victim died, with Mr. Arango being sentenced to 34 years in prison, and the other two being sentenced to 17 years in prison.

However, only Mr. Arango has been extradited thus far; the extradition request for Mr. Uribe was still in the evidence-gathering stage as of November 2022.

Mr. Arango and co-conspirators are each charged with conspiracy to assault an internationally protected person, conspiracy to kidnap an internationally protected person, assault of an internationally protected person, and kidnapping of an internationally protected person.

If convicted, Mr. Arango and associates face a maximum sentence of life in prison. 

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.