They have detected an increase in trafficking on the drug routes that cross Chile

Investigations and kidnappings of drug consignments on the roads connecting the northern border to the Cuyo region revealed in recent months consolidation of a new traffic line to Chile, with the intention of avoiding the carabiner controls which focused on preventing the entry of cocaine in this country of Bolivia and Peru.

Earlier this month, two men were captured when a gendarmerie patrol He surprised them with three kilos of cocaine in the vicinity of the town of Joaquín V. González, south of Salta. The two drug traffickers, one from Bolivia and the other from Guaymallén, were traveling from the border town of ‘Oran in a Chevrolet Prisma that he was intercepted by federal agents of Squad 45. Similar cases are repeated.

Prosecutor in charge of the case, Carlos Amad, told the nation: “Although they don’t carry a lot of cocaine, they are obviously part of a gang of traffickers who give them money to buy the drugs. . How can you buy drugs if you don’t have the money to eat? Here in Salta, a kilo of cocaine costs around four thousand dollars ”.

This case is part of a chain of seizures on both sides of the border with Chile, putting the new routes taken by narcos avoid Chilean controls which mainly target its borders with Bolivia and Peru. According to official information from the Carabineros, between January and November 2020, 70% of the cocaine seized across the country was found in the main cities in the north. Chilean security forces seized a 122 kilogram shipment of cocaine in Antofagasta, which was believed to have come from Salta.

The symptomatic seizures which explain the search for new routes by the traffickers began to be perceived with more intensity in the last weeks of last year. On December 19, the gendarmerie intercepted a man carrying a kilo of cocaine in Mendoza, in a group of tourists who had left Orán, on the border between Salta and Bolivia.

In another case, registered in 2020, and according to a report from the National Prosecutor’s Office, “the brothers Branco and Ezequiel Villegas were sentenced to seven years in prison for the offense of transporting narcotics aggravated by the number of interveners. In the same sentence, Rodolfo Cruz was sentenced, who was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison ”. They were two brothers from Mendoza and a taxi driver from Jujuy, accused of trafficking 67 kilos of cocaine. On this occasion, the drug seizure took place in the vicinity of the town of Cafayate, on the tourist route of the Calchaquí valleys.

Control from prison

Last August, four days after the Federal Oral Tribunal (TOF) No.2 in Mendoza sentenced a bar in Godoy Cruz to 12 years in prison for the crime of drug trafficking, forensic investigators detected that this prisoner, identified like Daniel Aguilera, oversaw the expedition. of cocaine in packages from the city of Salta de Tartagal.

The load of 5.5 kilograms of cocaine was found in a transport vehicle thanks to the smell of a dog trained by the national gendarmerie. The operation was carried out on national road 34, at the Cabeza de Buey checkpoint. After the discovery, the Salta delegation from the nation’s prosecution service complex requested the activation of controlled delivery of the package.

Federal Judge No. 2 in Salta, Miguel Medina, authorized the measure. And the drug was replaced by flour, so that the encomienda could continue its journey to Mendoza. According to judicial sources informed the nation, the follow-up of the commission triggered various operations, in which the federal judge No.1 of Salta, Julio Bavio, intervened. “The suspects are part of a heavy criminal clan that operates in Mendoza,” the sources said.

Another important operation took place at an altitude of over 4,300 meters, where several patrolling gendarmes from the San Antonio de los Cobres Brigade were deployed this month to hunt and capture a group of drug traffickers who were mobilizing at night with the vehicle lights extinguished and seeking to cross Chile.

Within 20 kilometers of this objective, the narco truck was intercepted by units of the gendarmerie in the area known as Quebrada de Aracar.

34 kilos of marijuana and just over two kilos of cocaine were seized, but although the amount of drugs seized was small, it was more important for investigators to expose the traffickers since this road detected in the heights was closed.

And in one case discovered this week, more than two tonnes of marijuana were seized after an investigation by the police for 18 months. The drugs were hidden in a shipment of rice that was intercepted in the Cordoba town of Gutenberg. After the discovery of the 2,286 kilos of marijuana, several raids were developed in Mendoza, where the criminal organization was operating. Investigators suspect that the drug consignments were monitored by an inmate housed in a penitentiary in La Pampa.

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