Colombian authorities, with the support of the DEA, captured the Secretary of Government of Maicao, the second city of the department of La Guajira (north), for extradition purposes for leading a drug trafficking gang that sent cocaine to the United States and Central America, police reported on Wednesday.
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Colombian police said in a statement that Kevin Simon Lopezz “used his position as a public servant to hide his criminal acts, given that he served as Secretary of Government and was currently appointed as Acting Mayor of the municipality of Maicao.”
López was captured in Maicao, while five other people, also requested for extradition by the United Stateswere arrested in Riohacha and in Cúcuta, the capital of the department of Norte de Santander, for being part of the drug trafficking gang led by López.
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The arrests are the final point of an investigation that lasted two years and led to the seizure of more than six tons of narcotics, seven firearms and 36 transnational arrests of Venezuelan, Dominican and Colombian citizens.
They, according to the Colombian Police, did “part of the logistics chain in the maritime transport of cocaine, from the high Guajira to Central America, and with which sufficient evidence was obtained that exposed the leader and his henchmen in Colombia.”
Lopez, according to investigators, He had at his disposal the logistical capacity, economic power and approval of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group. for “coordinate the acquisition of cocaine” in the Catatumbo region, in the department of Norte de Santander.
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The Catatumbo region is one of the most troubled in the country due to the presence of various armed groups such as the ELN, FARC dissidents and criminal gangs.
From that area the stashes were taken to various municipalities in La Guajira. to then send them to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, among others, to later enter the United States by speedboat.
The six arrested are wanted by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida for the crimes of conspiracy to commit crimes and drug trafficking. They were placed at the orders of the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office, awaiting completion of the extradition proceedings.
EFE
