The Specialized Prosecutor for Drug-Related Crimes managed to order the indictment of charges for the crimes of money laundering and conspiracy to commit drug-related crimes against 12 people apprehended in the Harry operation, carried out on March 7, 2022, in the provinces of Panama, West Panama and Colon.
As a precautionary measure, the Judge of Guarantees Adrián Hernández, ordered the provisional detention of 9 people; to two home deposits and a periodic report on the 15th and 30th of each month.
In the hearing in which the Public Ministry was represented by the Prosecutors Joseph Díaz and Katherine Hill, they supported before the judge the different events where more than a ton of drugs were seized and the elements of conviction that link the accused to the facts investigated. , assuming the imputation of charges and the precautionary measure mentioned above. Similarly, the apprehension of all the defendants and the diligence of image fixation and seizure of data from a surveillance camera were decreed legal.
The “modus operandi” of the criminal group was the meetings and telephone communications to coordinate all the logistics prior to the illicit activities, in addition to the use of different companies under the figure of corporations with a cargo transport commercial reason, thus facilitating the entry of drugs from Colombia through double-bottom vehicles and with the contamination of containers in different ports for shipment to destinations such as; Europe, South America, Asia and others.
The criminal group is related to different events of seizures of illicit substances, highlighting that of September 27, 2018, where 90 packages of cocaine were seized at a port in the district of Arraiján whose container was destined for Taiwan.
In the second event, 601 packets of cocaine were seized in a double bottom of an articulated vehicle in the district of Veracruz, on January 18, 2019 and the seizure of 1,289 packets of cocaine on March 16, 2019, in the sector of La Candelaria, district of Río Grande, district of Penonomé.
The third event seized 154 packages of illicit substance in a van in the township of San Juan, province of Colón on May 3, 2021.
The fourth event occurred on January 15, 2022, where 550 packets of cocaine were seized in a port located in the corregimiento of Veracruz.
These illicit activities generated money for this criminal group for the collection of custody, security, logistics, transportation of illicit substances, money that through close associates, facilitators and relatives is placed in the financial system through the creation of corporations that are created and used in order to conceal and integrate the money of illicit origin.
