September 3, 2024, 4:00 AM
September 3, 2024, 4:00 AM
NNine small planes without seats and equipped to transport cocaine were discovered by the police in the Verli Vélez agricultural hangar in the municipality of Cotoca. The facilities belong to Erlan Ivar García López, known as “el Colla”, who worked with the Uruguayan Sebastián Marset, the fugitive drug trafficker who once controlled an air bridge for transporting drugs between Bolivia and Paraguay.
Agents of the Special Force for the Fight against Drug Trafficking (FELCN) found this hangar in the context of the investigations following the shootout that took place on Sunday between two groups of alleged drug traffickers. El Colla, who was detained for the Marset case, was shot on the orders of a Paraguayan pilot. El Colla is in an intensive care unit at the Foianini clinic. His health condition is very delicate.
However, Yermy Pastor Zampiery Suárez, 38, who was with Colla, died in the shooting. The incident took place in La Enconada.
During the raid, a search was carried out; an airline pilot, a security guard, two people in charge of cleaning and a taxi driver were arrested. In addition to these arrests, a woman who helped Colla and the deceased Zampiery Suárez were arrested. The arrest of two Brazilian nationals who were traveling in the Kia car that was attacked and who escaped after the incident was also confirmed. In total, there are Eight people arrested related to last Sunday’s armed confrontation.
According to police reports, minutes after the incident, both injured – Colla and Zampiery – were assisted and transferred to the hospital in Cotoca by a woman who arrived in a white Chevrolet Montana pickup truck with license plate 6287-ITT. She was driven by a 30-year-old MFRG, but was stopped by police officers when she was in the emergency room of the Cotoca municipal hospital.
In his initial statement to the Special Force Against Crime, he revealed that he had planned to meet with Colla on Sunday at a property near Guarayos. On the way, he received a call from Pastor Zampiery who told him to return to Santa Cruz de la Sierra. When he was passing through Enconada, he encountered a crowd of people, so he got out to help the two wounded men and take them to the hospital. Zampiery arrived dead at the hospital. Colla was taken to the Foianini clinic in the capital.
The woman confessed to having a close friendship with the deceased Pastor Zampiery. “I have known “the gang and some of his workers” for a year,” she said.
Paraguayan pilot’s girlfriend
Police have seen through security videos that the woman, before giving help, entered the Kia car, where she stole clothing and manipulated the place in search of some object that the two people left inside. There are indications that she was key to make weapons disappear which they used to confront the attackers.
After the raid, the Felcc and the Felcn managed to detect that the person who ordered the killing is a Paraguayan pilot known as Teddy, MFRG’s boyfriend.
The woman was interviewed by agents who detected her love affair with the Paraguayan pilot, although she initially denied being his girlfriend. Police intelligence reports indicate that The Paraguayan pilot is in Bolivia, in a region of Beni.
The police suspect, based on the information they have, that behind the confrontation between two sides there was a cocaine shipment deal to be shipped abroad. After the discovery of the planes adapted for drug transport, they were transferred to the Felcn for investigation by the Gice intelligence group.
The violent incident led to two investigations, one for murder and the other for drug trafficking linked to Colla, within the Marset case. The murder case is being investigated by the Felcc and the assigned prosecutor Rocío Medrano.
All intelligence groups of the Felcn and Felcc are mobilized in coordination in search of the Paraguayan pilot who ordered the killing, as well as other people related to the case.