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Colombia exchanged information with Bolivia during the anti-drug operations led by the DEA (United States Drug Enforcement Agency) and that ended with the arrest of the former head of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) Maximiliano Dávila, he assured the ambassador of the coffee nation in Bolivia, Aníbal Ariza, to Brújula Digital.
“There has been information between the respective agencies, without a doubt. There has been an exchange of information,” the Colombian diplomat repeatedly stated before a query from that medium.
On January 23, the national government reported the arrest of Maximiliano Dávila on suspicion of links to drug trafficking and illicit enrichment. This was the result of an investigation that the United States drug enforcement agency began into a drug trafficking network.
In 2021, the elite group arrested Oscar Rojas, a former Bolivian police officer, in Colombia, and Jorge Roca Suárez, alias “Patch Roof,” in Peru, who has already served a 27-year sentence in a US prison. United for the same crime.
“Dávila would be linked to drug trafficking and illicit profits. The prosecution considers that they had enough elements and that is why his apprehension was determined, ”Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo said at a press conference, after presenting Dávila to the media.
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“The DEA office would have made arrests of Bolivian citizens in Latin American countries, where people are identified who would be linked to the movement of transfer of economic amounts of patrimonial assets of apparently illicit origin,” the Bolivian police said in an additional press release. .
The minister said that he is waiting for an official report that has been requested from the United States embassy in La Paz, through the Foreign Ministry. “Which will allow us to contrast data with the information that is currently being carried out.”
The Morales government expelled the US ambassador from La Paz in 2009 and suspended the DEA indefinitely, citing alleged acts of espionage. The US embassy denied any such accusation.
Ariza reported that the DEA “has a chapter in Colombia (very important) that it has been developing for some time to face a joint fight against drug trafficking.”
Dávila, a former police colonel, was in charge of fighting drugs until Morales’ resignation in November 2019.
After the inauguration of President Luis Arce, he was appointed as departmental commander of the Police in the department of Cochabamba. Today he is being held in the San Pedro prison, in the city of La Paz, accused of crimes of illicit enrichment and, apparently, drug trafficking activities, although there is currently no formal charge for drug trafficking.
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This is not the first case in which police chiefs are linked to drug trafficking. The Morales government went through a scandal in 2011 after René Sanabria, the anti-drug chief, was arrested by the DEA in Panama after being accused of providing protection to traffickers for the transfer of 144 kilograms of cocaine to the United States. At that time, Morales said that it was a plot against his government.
Mixed bilateral meeting to discuss the fight against drug trafficking
Ariza also took the opportunity to report that Colombia and Bolivia will promote the first mixed bilateral meeting in the coming weeks to discuss strategies to fight drug trafficking.
“We are about to meet the mixed commission of Colombia and Bolivia in which we attend and face the commitments with the crime of drug trafficking. There is progress, without a doubt, and a great commitment, because the tremendous effect produced by drug trafficking has also been identified,” said Ariza.
He pointed out that the meeting will take place in the next few days, although he did not specify what day. However, he pointed out that the meeting will be in the city of La Paz.
“The agenda has not been detained, we advance in that purpose of fighting drug trafficking, transnational crime and we do it with full force,” he said.
