Military called in to search for kidnapped father of Liverpool player

Bogota, Colombia: Authorities in Colombia have mobilised the national police and the military to look for the father of football star Luis Díaz, a Colombian standout for the English club Liverpool whose parents were kidnapped in his hometown Saturday. Given football’s popularity here, the incident captured the South American country’s attention, but it also stoked fears of increasing insecurity in a nation where such kidnappings were becoming less common until a surge in recent years.

Liverpool’s Luis Diaz and the reward poster circulated by Colombian police for his father’s return.Credit: Getty/supplied

Díaz’s mother, Cilenis Marulanda, was rescued hours after she was abducted, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia said Saturday night. Colombian national police, the military and a unit that specialises in kidnapping dispatched officers, soldiers, cars and aircraft to find his father, Luis Manuel Díaz.

The parents of Díaz, who is known as Lucho, had been in a car at a gas station in Barrancas — a town in La Guajira, a region of northern Colombia along the Caribbean Sea and bordering Venezuela — when they were kidnapped by armed men Saturday afternoon, according to local reports and authorities.

Colombian authorities on Sunday morning announced a reward of 200 million pesos (roughly $76,000) for any information that would help locate the elder Díaz.

They said they were in a rush to find him because they feared that he might be taken to neighbouring Venezuela, a country marred by years of political, economic and social unrest.

While details of Marulanda’s rescue were not immediately known, she was safe as of Saturday night, said William René Salamanca, head of the Colombian national police. In a video posted Saturday night on X, formerly known as Twitter, Salamanca spoke briefly on the phone with Marulanda.

Liverpool’s Diogo Jota celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal holding the jersey of teammate Luis Diaz during the English Premier League match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.Credit: AP

In another video, posted by Salamanca on Sunday morning, he spoke on the phone with the younger Díaz via the Colombian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Roy Barreras. Salamanca told Díaz, 26, that Colombian authorities were sparing no effort in trying to find his father and that the situation had moved the country. He also told Díaz that he was in La Guajira and was headed to his hometown soon to help lead the operation.

Díaz is reportedly earning more than $4.725 million a year, and thus may have been a target for extortion, said Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a political risk consultancy, based in the Colombian capital, Bogotá.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.