Alejandro Palacios Rengifo
Biography
Alejandro Palacios Rengifo, known as El Gato or Yimi, was abducted and forcibly recruited into the FARC at age thirteen. While serving in its 57th Front, he was ordered to guard U.S. citizen Cecilio Juan Padrón, who had been kidnapped in Panama City on April 4, 2008 and held in a jungle camp for ransom. Rengifo escaped from the FARC and entered a Colombian demobilization program in 2009. Colombian authorities arrested him in Medellín on December 3, 2009, and he arrived in New York after extradition on December 9, 2010. He was convicted of hostage taking and hostage-taking conspiracy on June 20, 2011 after a bench trial on stipulated facts and sentenced on October 24, 2011 to fifteen years in federal prison and three years of supervised release. On October 29, 2021, the court reduced his custodial sentence to time served and vacated supervised release.
