A Colombian woman has been jailed for her part in a series of audacious robberies that targeted the homes of Chinese restaurant owners and netted close to £50,000 in cash, jewellery and luxury goods.
Jeny Galindo – who was human trafficked into the country by an organised crime gang – donned a wig to disguise her identity as she took part in the raids in Balmedie and Elgin.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard how the underworld criminals cased the houses of their victims for weeks, learning their movements, before executing a series of burglaries.
Galindo, 36, was spotted on CCTV at both properties and her DNA was discovered at a second property.
Her solicitor, Mike Monro, told the court that Galindo had left Columbia due to fears for her safety but had soon fallen into the hands of a criminal gang of human traffickers.
Mr Monro said his client had been forced to work in Madrid and London before landing in the north-east where she was effectively forced to take part in the burglaries.
Owners came home to find houses ransacked
Fiscal depute Andrew McMann told the court that the first house targeted by the criminal gang was a five-bedroom property on Covesea Grove, Elgin, owned by a couple who run a Chinese takeaway.
They had left the house secured at around 2.30pm on May 19 2023 but returned at 9.45pm to find a patio door smashed and their home ransacked with items all over the floor.
A number of pieces of jewellery were missing and £1,000 in cash.
Gold, pearl and diamond necklaces, were taken, alongside Swiss watches, gold rings and pearl earrings.
The total estimated value was £10,000.
Galindo was identified via CCTV and linked to a vehicle seen in the area.
Her DNA was also found on a “punch tool” from a backpack recovered from the car.
Robbers found £10,000 inside piano
On July 14 2023, a four-bedroom property belonging to another Chinese restaurant owner on Chapelwell Drive, Balmedie, was targeted by the gang.
The owner – who had stored £10,000 in cash hidden in a compartment inside a piano – returned home at around 10.30pm to find his house in disarray. His piano was partially dismantled and his cash was gone.
A further £5,200 in cash was stolen from other places in the building, which made up the takings from his business.
When he checked upstairs, he found the loft open, all bedrooms ransacked and three Louis Vuitton handbags, a Prada handbag and a Burberry handbag worth £10,000 all gone.
Various items of jewellery, a designer Canada Goose jacket, an iPhone, three computers and a laptop, two passports and foreign currency were also taken.
He checked his CCTV camera and found that it had been turned off at the wall.
The last footage recorded showed Galindo wearing a black wig appearing at the front door of the property where she rang the doorbell several times before walking away.
The following day, Galindo was traced as a passenger of a vehicle travelling southbound on the M74 – and a number of incriminating items were found within the vehicle.
The total estimated value of the items taken from the Balmedie property was between £30,000 and £40,000.
In the dock, Galindo pleaded guilty to two counts of housebreaking.
‘They were professional criminals’
Defence solicitor Mike Monro described his client’s case as “one of the most difficult” he had handled in his career.
He stated that Galindo had been forced to leave her native country of Columbia due to issues her family faced at the hands of armed militia groups within the region.
She then ended up in the USA before being “forced” to move to Madrid, then London and finally the north-east of Scotland.
“Ms Galindo was completely and utterly in the hands of a gang who were threatening her over the safety of her father, who was still in Columbia,” Mr Monro said.
“She believed she had no alternative but to accede to the requests of this gang – they were professional criminals.”
Woman to be deported
In relation of the burglaries, Mr Monro told the court that members of the criminal gangs had been watching the houses for weeks and that the “some total involvement” of his client was to repeatedly ring the doorbell to make sure no one was home.
He also stated that his client had been on remand for these offences for the equivalent of 19 months.
Sentencing Galindo, Sheriff Philip Mann told her that he believed a sentence of 24 months was appropriate but added that due to the equivalent time she had already spent in prison that he expected that if she was “not released immediately then she would be released very soon”.
He made a recommendation that Galindo, whose address was given as HMP Grampian, be deported from the UK upon her release from prison.
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