Javier Florez buys his way out of chokey

Atletico Junior’s Javier Florez was driving home from a defeat in Columbia’s Copa Mustang tournament in July when he was hassled by a group of fans. Instead of rising above their torments, the midfielder decided to let his gun do the talking. A 27-year-old electrician named Israel Campillo was murdered when he fired several shots at the group.

Florez surrendered himself to the police shortly after the incident, and admitted that he was drunk at the time. Despite admitting to a very heinous crime, the troubled star has been released from prison after paying 150m pesos ($75,000) to the victim’s family.

In addition to compensating the family, Florez had to pay a fine of just 1.5m pesos ($750) in order to get out of prison.

With such lenient punishments, is it any wonder that Colombia has a world-beating murder rate?