Does this look like the face of a former Colombian senator turned criminal mastermind who was imprisoned for buying votes and then escaped from custody while at an appointment to get her grill lined up by an orthodontist?
If you said, “Yes. Yes, that certainly does look like the face of such a person!” then take pride in the knowledge that you are 100% right. Now, let’s get some more details from this story…
Source: Fox News: “A former politician in Colombia who was jailed for buying votes and later executed a brazen jailbreak during a dental appointment was captured Monday in Venezuela after several months on the run. Aida Merlano, 43, was arrested in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo in the northwestern state of Zulia “after arduous investigations,” Miguel Domínguez, who heads Venezuela’s Special Action Force (FAES), announced on Instagram. The former senator was serving a 15-year sentence for buying votes in the 2018 parliamentary election, and for possession of an illegal firearm at the time of her brazen escape last October from an orthodontist practice in the Colombian capital city of Bogota.
The escape appeared to be an embarrassment for the nation’s prison system, with local media reporting shortly after that General William Ruiz was fired as director of the Colombian National Penitentiary and Prison Institute. Domínguez posted a photo of Merlano following her capture. He said the fugitive former lawmaker, who entered the country illegally, would be handed over to the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office. It was unclear whether Merlano would be extradited back to Colombia amid tense relations between the two countries.”
I have a lot of thoughts about this story. First of all, props to our girl Aida for not letting a little thing like a 15 year prison sentence deter her from taking stellar care of her pearly whites! She clearly is a believer in the theory of dental care that my grandmother has always preached to every family member who will listen, “Be true to your teeth; lest they be false to you!”. My Gram obviously knows a thing or two about maintaining chiclets because she’s 85 years old and has all of her teeth (Eat your heart out Polydent! Gram ain’t buying what you’re sellin!) Anyway, I digress.
It’s highly commendable that Aida was making it a point to care for her teeth even behind bars. I think many of us might let hygiene slip a bit if faced with the prospect of almost 2 decades of hard time, but Aida took a different route. She didn’t just floss after each meal, brush her teeth, and follow with a few liberal swishes of mouthwash. She didn’t simply avail herself of the in-house standard prison dental care services located on site at the Colombian lock-up where she was being housed. No, this lady talked up some outside (and I’m guessing also very “out of network”) care for herself and this care was not just regular dentistry. Nope, Our Lady of Perpetual Vote Rigging and General Criminal Mischief talked herself up some full blown orthodontia! We’re taking the place where one goes to get braces, maybe score some fancy porcelain veneers, or even get carved up for full blown maxillofacial surgery should the situation call for it!
So, Aida (or Miss Merlano if you nasty) somehow convinced a prison guard to take her to the orthodontist. I’m imagining the visit was going along pretty normally. The doctor had probably complimented Aida on the wonderful job she was doing caring for her teeth despite the challenging conditions of her incarceration. Aida had probably just picked out what color retainer she wanted and the doctor was probably starting to wrap up the whole appointment. Most likely, as Aida was checking out at the front desk and a nurse was probably offering her a sticker for being a “good little patient” was the moment when all hell broke loose as Aida pulled out a Glock that she had had an accomplice stash in the dental chair for her. She probably then pointed the gun at the prison guard, and jumped out the window of the office like some kind of Colombian Jason Bourne!
From there Aida did something no-one would expect: This chick fled TO Venezuela! That’s right, she fled to what is arguably the worst country in all of South America right now. We’re talking a nation in which people are starving and are so hungry that they actively trying to FLEE to COLOMBIA (the nation where Aida was bailing from) just to have enough food to eat so that the don’t die.
Not simply staying in Colombia is a really odd move for even more reasons. I mean, we’ve all seen Narcos on Netflix. If that show taught us anything it’s that Colombia is the nation where Pablo Escobar, a repulsively fat, murderous crime lord pretty much ran the place as he saw fit for over a decade. I’m pretty sure that with her pearly white smile and general can do approach to life (this woman somehow spoke into existence first rate medical care while serving a 15 year prison sentence in a third word lockup) Aida could have simply declared herself the new leader of the city in which she escaped, been accepted by the locals as their new leader, and then lived out her days in relative peace and tranquility just brushing thoroughly after each meal and maybe even rigging an occasional municipal election for old times sake. But no, homegirl went chasing waterfalls and booked it to Venezuela rather than sticking to the Colombian rivers and lakes that she was used to and now she’s been captured and her return to Colombia seem eminent. All I can say is Aida Merlano, I tip my hat to you, you legend of the lockup. May your smile continue to brighten whatever prisons you find yourself in for the next several decades.
