The former Minister of Public Security, José Raúl Mulino, spoke on several topics of interest this Wednesday, on Radio Panama, among them, narco-politics.
He specified the leak of drug trafficking into politics shows that it is a latent risk in Panama and that neighboring countries have experienced it, and it does not give any positive results.
In his opinion, this demonstration could change if the Electoral Court took into account the controls, since they are the authority, “they are not a civic club.” He added that the Electoral Tribunal must check the profiles of the candidates to see who is running; “It cannot be that a person who has had a history of drug trafficking is foolishly and happily allowed to run for popular election positions because what he is carrying is contamination.”
Mulino revealed that in 2014 he met with two of the three presidential candidates and showed him names, surnames and places that were linked to drug trafficking and immersed in politics. “I said it by circuit and by areas, they threw the rope at me why I didn’t present the names and file the complaint and two or three weeks they killed two in the San Miguelito area and they were drug crimes,” he remarked.
He stated that Panama is facing a multinational scourge, weighed down by the liberality that it seems that President Petro is giving to drug traffickers in Colombia, and “we are their first frontier.”
Acquisition of drug incinerator
Among other issues, Mulino referred to the purchase and acquisition of a drug incinerator for Panama, as announced on Tuesday by the Minister of Public Security, Juan Manuel Pino.
According to the former official, in 2012 two incinerators were brought to the country that were donated, one smaller than the other. “That was not efficient, it is not that it did not burn, it was a very hot oven where you deposited the drug, I was investigating at that time because there was no way and they told us that the only way (10 years ago) was in the cement ovens that are giants to burn off this drug monstrosity,” he explained.
He stressed that this is a highly toxic process, because that white smoke that comes out affects everyone, with a taste that stays in your throat.
“I do not see with bad eyes that the gringos take the drug, it was totally for them, for here to have that risk due to the quantities, because there are always risks that they try to steal it, rob a truck. I do not know what perspective the government has or what was the fund of that generous aid to the United States to take the more than 40 tons of drugs there,” he said.
