June 18, 2023, 1:29 PM
June 18, 2023, 1:29 PM
The Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, said this Sunday that with the support of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) “heads of family clans” have been identified he prefers not to call them “big shots”.
“Those who want to talk about big shots are free to do so, but for us there are only heads of family clans”, The authority sustained the journalists after a sports activity carried out by the Bolivian Police.
Among those who speak of these “big shots” is the Vice Minister of Social Defense, Jaime Mamani, who reported that Felcn dismantled 12 criminal organizations dedicated to drug trafficking between 2021 and 2022.
“We are working with a new approach that is the disarticulation of criminal organizations in a coordinated manner with neighboring countries and that allows us to apprehend leaders of criminal organizations or ‘big shots of drug trafficking,’” Mamani said Thursday.
Among the results, Mamani highlighted the apprehension and extradition of Einar Lima Golden Wolf on May 5, 2021, who had led a drug trafficking organization since 1990 and had ties to the First Capital Command of Brazil (PCC) and the Cali Cartel.
The spokesman for the Presidency, Jorge Richter, had questioned the existence of these “big shots” of drug trafficking. “The subject referred to the ‘big shots’ is being mentioned lightly and freely.yes. In the 80s when the reference for drug traffickers was Roberto Suárez or when at the time the reference was Meco Domínguez, during the government of Jaime Paz Zamora; or when the reference was Thatched Roof. What are the ‘big shots that are circulating as names in the country today?’” he said last week.
The former Minister of Government, Carlos Romero, questioned these statements. “In Bolivia there are family clans linked to foreign clans and family clans with big shots who coordinate with bigwigs from international clans,” said the ex-authority.
Romero, who was a government minister for seven years, recalled that in the last 40 years there have been several generations of family clans. “A first, linked to the military of the dictatorships; a second in the era of neoliberalism and a third generation, which is the current”, he explained in an interview with Panamericana radio.
The debate about the presence of big shots and drug trafficking organizations with international connections was imposed after the hijacking of almost half a ton of cocaine at the Barajas airport in Madrid, on a flight operated by the state-owned BoA.
The cache left Viru Viru in February after evading all controls. In addition, several of the images from the video surveillance cameras have been deleted.
Del Castillo said this Sunday that the case is under the reservation of the Prosecutor’s Office and that the investigations aim to establish who owned that drug.
The “business” of the drug flight intended to move just over $30 million if the drug reached the black market in Europe.
