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Paraguayan police said on Saturday they had arrested seven people who allegedly tried to pass nearly 2,900 kilograms (6,393 pounds) of cocaine in Europe.
The drugs were seized last year at Paraguay’s main river port, police said. The shipment was destined for Israel via the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires and Antwerp in Belgium.
This was the largest amount of drug found in the country, until 3,400 kilograms (nearly 7,500 pounds) of cocaine were discovered hidden in bags of sugar in the central town of Fernando de la Mora earlier this year.
Police say brain was caught
Miguel Servin, a businessman who lived in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion, was arrested as the mastermind behind the second biggest cocaine seizure in the landlocked country.
The National Anti-Drugs Secretariat (SENAD) said Servin, who was arrested on Saturday, is accused of being the “boss and financier” of the drug smuggling operation.
He is accused of being “in charge of coordinating and supervising the transfer of large shipments of cocaine by river from our country to different continents by means of freight containers transported in the framework of international trade operations”, said a spokesperson for SENAD.
Servin had ties to Brazil’s largest criminal organization, First Command of the Capital, which has 20,000 known members.
The group is also present in the hometown of Servin, Pedro Juan Caballero.
Bolivia and Colombia are two of the main sources of cocaine in South America
Who else was arrested?
The chief prosecutor in the case, Elva Caceres, has revealed that Servin’s wife and daughter, detained in the northeastern town of Pedro Juan Caballero, are suspected of laundering money from trafficking in drug.
The other people arrested were involved in the transport of cocaine to Europe. Among them, a 20-year-old footballer who provided “logistical assistance to the criminal organization,” said a police spokesperson.
Until Saturday’s arrests, the only person detained for the drug trafficking operation was Cristian Turrini, the ex-director of a public television station. He was charged with drug possession and international drug trafficking.
Police suspect criminal gangs of processing drugs in laboratories in Paraguay before international transport.
The EFE news agency contributed to this report.
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