June 8, 2023, 4:00 AM
June 8, 2023, 4:00 AM
The recipient of the drug load that in February evaded the controls of Viru Viru It was a girl of Spanish nationality, said yesterday the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, during a press conference.
“The person to whom the drug load was directed was a Spanish minor. I wonder if in our country we can send any merchandise, through a company or an airline, to a minor. Can a minor pick up a package at a final destination?”, questioned the authority of the Government.
Del Castillo said that this minor is the niece of Carolina Adelaida Candia Romero and the granddaughter of Maribel Romero Antelo. These two women, of Bolivian nationality, They own the courier company José María de Santa Cruz, which shipped the drugs in a cargo that also carried merchandise, clothing and belongings, to Spain.
“An additional fact is that this minor is the niece of the owner of the courrie companyry is the granddaughter of the legal representative of this same company. For this reason, I ask that the Public Ministry investigate this company that is involved in the shipment of drugs to other countries. However, when we see the statements (of the owners), they say that they only received the merchandise from their clients and do not explain that their relatives are the recipients,” the authority observed when revealing details of the investigation.
After finding out about this supposed participation in the shipment of the ‘narcoencomienda’, the Felcn agents apprehended on Tuesday these two people who controlled the courier José María de Santa Cruz.
“People wonder why three officials or courier workers have been arrested, because these people have another similar company in Spain called La Bolivianita and we have records that, In the month of March, the Felcn confiscated 67,644 MDMA (synthetic drug) pills from two of these three people,” Del Castillo detailed.
According to the cargo declaration that was investigated in Madrid, the container had 12 packages of which four did not have a declaration. Without the intervention of the authorities, the cache had to be declared “lost hook” so that it could later be “rescued” by members of the network that operated in Spain.
According to those reports, these four packages were sent by different peoples for the same number of recipients. One of the people making that shipment has the same last names mentioned by Del Castillo, according to reports reviewed by El DEBER.
According to a Civil Guard report, the illegal operation has to do with a criminal organization “based in Madrid that would have employees from the Madrid airport for drug rescues” under the modality “lost hooks” or unclaimed cargo. The drug travels, in this case, hidden “inside merchandise from South America” that is later “rescued” by personnel at the European airport. This modality could be used on other occasions.
The investigation process was public in Bolivia in May100 days after the drug was found on a BoA flight.