Archive for the ‘Cocaine’ Category
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
A state prosecutor fighting reassignment to a jungle post for fear of reprisals from one of Peru’s most notorious drug barons has suffered another legal setback.
Judge Teresa Jara García rejected a habeas corpus appeal by prosecutor Luz Loayza against Attorney General Adelaida Bolívar and members of Supreme Court of Prosecutors, according to daily El Comercio.
Loayza was appealing orders from the attorney general and the Supreme Court that she return to her post in the jungle city of Iquitos, where Loayza says her life would be in danger jailed cocaine kingpin Fernando Zevallos. Jara said she made the decision last Friday however would not provide more information. (more…)
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Friday, February 8th, 2008
The inspector general of the National Police is removing 120 police officers from the Apurímac and Ene river valleys, VRAE, where about 30 percent of Peru’s coca leaf, the raw material used to make cocaine, is harvested.
Sixty of the officers are suspected of drug trafficking while another 27 are accused of corruption, daily La Republic quoted Inspector General Luis Henríquez Palacios saying. The other 33 officers are being removed because they were stationed in the VRAE for five to eight years, while regulations permit cycles of no more than three years in the area.
Henríquez told La República the 60 officers are suspected of using police weapons during their days off to seize cocaine from drug traffickers and resell it to competing cartels. The officers have reportedly been transferred to other posts pending an investigation. (more…)
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Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
Attorney General Adelaida Bolívar and three other prosecutors will be questioned by the National Magistrates Council, CNM, over their handling of two drug trafficking investigations, daily El Comercio reported. The CNM’s disciplinary commission, led by Francisco Delgado, will later rule on opening disciplinary procedures against Bolívar and prosecutors Luis Muñoz, from Loreto Department, José Luis Castillo, from Cajamarca Department, and María Milian, from Trujillo, capital of La Libertad Department. (more…)
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Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
State prosecutor Luz Loayza’s lawyer said he will appeal a decision by Peru’s Supreme Council of Prosecutors ordering Loayza’s return to her post in the city of Iquitos, where she would be at the mercy of drug traffickers. Aníbal Quiroga told daily La República they will appeal the decision in the judiciary and are prepared to bring the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights with support from the Lima Bar Association.
In November 2005, Loayza, 47, brought charges against Peru’s cocaine kingpin, Fernando Zevallos, who is currently serving a 20 year sentence for money laundering and drug trafficking. She reportedly received numerous death threats and escaped an assassination attempt in Iquitos during the year and a half trial against Zevallos.
Loayza has argued her life would be at risk if she returns to her post in the jungle city, capital of Loreto department, where drug traffickers have promised revenge.
However, the Supreme Council ordered Loayza’s return to Iquitos on Friday, arguing she failed to report death threats to her superiors. According to daily El Comercio, the Supreme Council echoed earlier comments by Attorney General Adelaida Bolívar saying prosecutors are inherently at risk. (more…)
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Friday, February 1st, 2008
Police have seized 200 kilograms, about 440 pounds, of cocaine in the port city of Callao in the largest cocaine seizure in Peru so far this year. The cocaine was hidden in a crate among replicas of Inca ceramics aboard the Elqui, which is owned by the Chilean CSAV shipping company, the largest in Latin America, according to daily La República. The cocaine was reportedly bound for Spain, with an estimated street value of eight million euros, or almost $12 million.
According to the daily, Peru’s anti-drug unit, Dirandro, arrested three employees from the port who were allegedly involved in the trafficking. The employees are suspected of being in the employ of a Colombian drug cartel that traffics to Spain, France and the United Kingdom. (more…)
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Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
The head of Peru’s anti-narcotics unit, General Miguel Hidalgo, announced that they will begin preliminary investigations into 124 companies and some 77 people suspected of money laundering. The investigation surrounds the Sánchez Paredes family, which is suspected of using the companies to hide decades-old profits from drug trafficking.
According to Agencia Andina, the investigations will include the Sánchez Paredes siblings: Santos Orlando, Amanda Francisca, Segundo Manuel, Fortunato Wilmer and Blanca Azucena as well as their mother, Marcelina Príncipe.
Police suspect the Sánchez Paredes family has been involved in the drug trade since 1976, supplying cocaine to Mexican and Colombian cartels, including the Medellín cartel, which was ruled by Colombia’s former drug baron, Pablo Escobar.
“We are looking for a sharp investigation with testimonies, expertise, evidence and corresponding surveys,” said Hidalgo. “When finished we’ll have an impeccable report that will allow the judiciary to press charges accordingly.” (more…)
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
A second police chief in Peru’s southern Ayacucho Department has been arrested for drug trafficking in less than two weeks. Captain Carlos Izaguirre, 46, from the small town of Quinua, in Huamanga province, was arrested Jan.24 with officer Ernesto Ramos, 41, for allegedly reselling cocaine that had been confiscated in their jurisdiction, according to daily La República.
The men were reportedly arrested in the city of Huamanga, capital of Ayacucho Department and 35 km from their Quinua jurisdiction, after police found traces of cocaine in their vehicle.
A police search of Ramos’s home also turned up $3,400, a fortune considering Peru’s police reportedly earn on average 800 soles, or less than $300, a month. The daily reported that examinations of the bills also found traces of cocaine. (more…)
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Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
A family of coca growers who had replaced their illicit yield for legal alternative crops was brutally executed Sunday morning in Peru’s eastern jungle province of Padre Abad, in Ucayali Department. The mayor of a local community told Radio Programas radio the crime was in retaliation for the family’s support of a State program that encourages farmers to voluntarily eradicate their coca plantations.
One of the victims, 30-year-old Aniceto Cámara, received death threats the day before the attack because of his involvement in the eradication program, Agencia Andina reported. The other victims include Cámara’s wife, 28-year-old Césarea Polino, and their three children aged 10, seven and one. Cámara’s younger brother, 25-year-old Inocencio Cámara, was also killed.
Radio Programas reported that the adults were tied up and shot with shotguns and revolvers and that the children were hacked to death with machetes.
Cabinet Chief Jorge Del Castillo told Agencia Andina, “this murder shows the ferocity at the criminal hands of drug traffickers, who … kill those who want to change to a lawful economy.” (more…)
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Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
A letter obtained by daily Peru. 21 has raised further questions about Attorney General Adelaida Bolívar’s insistence on transferring one of her prosecutors back to a jungle city post where her life would reportedly be at risk from Peru’s jailed cocaine kingpin Fernando Zevallos.
According to the daily, Zevallos sent Bolívar a seven-page letter from his jail cell in the maximum security Piedras Gordas prison on Sept. 26, 2006. The letter reportedly requested that Prosecutor Luz Loayza be denied a transfer request from the jungle city of Iquitos, in Maynas province, to the more secure capital, Lima. A day later Bolívar denied the transfer.
U.S. President George W. Bush added Zevallos to Washington’s international “drug kingpin” list in June 2004, freezing his U.S. assets and prohibiting American citizens from engaging in any transactions with him or any of his businesses.
The action was the culmination of a long-running battle with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and precipitated the collapse of Zevallos’ airline, Aero Continente, which in 12 years had grown to dominate Peru’s domestic aviation market, allegedly bankrolled by cocaine profits. DEA officials described Zevallos as a Peruvian “Al Capone,” because of his wanton manipulation of Peru’s courts, media and police and his alleged practice of silencing witnesses through bribes, threats and murder. (more…)
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Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
The police chief from the city of La Mar, capital of San Miguel province in Ayacucho department, was arrested Sunday night after he was allegedly caught transporting 25 kilograms, or 55 pounds, of cocaine paste. According to daily La República, Captain Pedro Guzmán Ayma had wrapped the paste in 59 packages and hid it in a box in his police vehicle. An AKM rifle and numerous pistols were also seized.
Guzmán and three accomplices were reportedly about 10 kilometers, or about 6 miles, outside of Ayacucho when police officers confronted them. Guzmán opened fire on the police, causing a shootout that left one of his accomplices, a known drug trafficker, injured, local media reported.
The men were allegedly traveling to Ayacucho from the Apurímac and Ene river valleys, VRAE, where more than 30 percent of Peru’s coca, the raw material used to make cocaine, is cultivated, according to the 2007 UN World Drug Report. The UN report added that the 2006 farm-gate value of cocaine paste was $879 per kilogram in Colombia, where much of the Peruvian paste is sent and manufactured into cocaine. (more…)
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