The operation mars (which culminated in November 2022) made it possible to seize drugs, cars and bring 10 people to justice who had a micro-trafficking network in four neighborhoods of Montevideo —Cerro, La Teja, Cordón and Brazo Oriental. Investigating the cell phone of one of those captured, the Police were able to reach another network for which four people were convicted this Thursday and another remains charged and serving preventive detention. They called this second part Operation Archimedes.
According to what the prosecutor in the case, Stella Llorente, said at a hearing —to whose record she agreed The Observer— One of the convicts in the case was in a Telegram group called ‘Only handle things’. Different drugs were traded in it, but when the rest of the members noticed that some of them had “fallen prisoner”, they made another separate group called ‘420’. Thus, with video surveillance, intelligence and even an undercover agent, they managed to disrupt this new group.
The Police ended up seizing ecstasy, crystals, marijuana, a precision scale and several cell phones. The only woman—from Rivera—convicted for this cause was captured for sending 2,000 ecstasy pills through a parcel. A young man from Montevideo was accused of being the recipient of some of these parcels. She was arrested in Rivera and taken to Montevideo to face the charges that would be brought against her.
As reported by Telemundo, the Police are exploring possible links between the frontier faction Os Manos and this network. In some cases, their objective was to send the marijuana to Brazil, where its value doubles or triples its value in Uruguay.
According to Llorente’s account at the hearing, in the group ‘420’ and another called ‘Ricas cosas por LV’, the defendants marketed the drug through pseudonyms. One of them ‘Gaby Telegram’ offered different types of pills, published prices and warned that he was in the Antel Arena area and that he was willing to deliver. Another, whose pseudonym was “Boy from the neighborhood 01” accompanied by the emoji of a monkey, also published that he sold wholesale pills. In fact, he sold ‘promotions’ at the end of the year.
Three people were sentenced for a continued crime of dealing in narcotic substances. Two of them must serve two years in prison and the third two years and six months. The woman was convicted of a crime of assistance to the criminal activities of drug trafficking and the young man who was willing to receive the pills is still charged in preventive detention while the investigation continues.
In total, they seized 2,000 ecstasy pills, 21.5 kilograms of marijuana, several containers and bags with more ecstasy, methamphetamine and one with cocaine, detailed from the capital headquarters. In addition, they also found ten pistol cartridges and $17,150.
