EL PAcCTO: Interpol detains 13 wanted fugitives in Latin America | International



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Thirteen of the most wanted people in Latin America have been arrested in various locations in the region in an operation coordinated by Interpol. The action involved eight of the Latin American countries, the international police organization said on Friday. The fugitives were charged with the crimes of murder, kidnapping or rape.

The arrests of these fugitives took place between February 22 and March 5 during the “operational phase” of the action, which began on November 20. The operation was carried out within the framework of the EL PAcCTO project, which since 2018 has established a permanent collaboration between Europe and Latin America to fight transnational organized crime.

Among those arrested in Friday’s operation are a man wanted in Peru for sexual exploitation of children and human trafficking, imprisoned by the Argentine federal police; the head of an international drug trafficking network that had smuggled more than two tons of cocaine into Brazil, captured by Bolivian police in Santa Cruz; and Inga Molina, wanted in Ecuador since 2018 for rape and located in Quito thanks to the exchange of information between the investigators of EL PAcCTO.

All have been the subject of so-called Interpol red alerts, calling for the collaboration of law enforcement agencies around the world to locate and arrest them. In addition, they also appeared at the end of 2020 in a list of priority objectives of the Investigation Support Unit of the international police organization.

This operation was the most successful in terms of arrests that were carried out within the framework of this network of cooperation in Latin America. The action had the participation of agents from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Peru.

“These results are only possible thanks to EL PAcCTO’s permanent network that has grown over time among fugitive national investigators,” said Stephen Kavanagh, executive director of the Interpol Police Department. Kavanagh stressed that as this network grows stronger each year, “it becomes even more difficult for criminals to escape justice when they flee from one Latin American country to another”.

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