Ex-top drug cop in Bolivia charged with cocaine trafficking

MIAMI – A former Bolivian antinarcotics chief has been charged within the U.S. with conspiring to supply top-level safety for cocaine shipments to the US.

The indictment unsealed Wednesday by a federal decide in New York additionally accuses Maximiliano Dávila-Perez of a associated weapons offense involving the possession of machine weapons. The Justice and State Departments additionally supplied a reward of as much as $5 million for data resulting in his conviction.

Bolivian authorities arrested Dávila-Perez final month on suspicion of cash laundering as he was allegedly attempting to flee to Argentina.

“As a substitute of rooting out drug trafficking in that nation, Dávila-Perez labored in partnership with Bolivian drug labs and sought to ship greater than a thousand kilograms of cocaine to the US,” U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams stated in an announcement. 

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Dávila-Perez served as antinarcotics chief within the closing months of Morales’ presidency, which ended abruptly in November 2019 when the previous coca farmer resigned amid road protests following the announcement that he had gained election to an unprecedented fourth time period.

Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from Bolivia in 2008, accusing it of plotting to overthrow his authorities at a time rising commodity costs and a wave of leftist politics all through South America was difficult longstanding U.S. affect within the area. 

The drug investigation that led to the fees towards Dávila-Perez was began by the DEA’s Particular Operations Division in 2017, in line with court docket data in a associated case. 

As a part of the probe, felony informants working beneath the DEA’s path recorded conversations during which a co-defendant of Dávila-Perez bragged of gaining access to an MD-11 army cargo airplane to move 60 tons of cocaine into the U.S. 

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The co-defendant, Percy Vasquez-Drew, stated that “he and different traffickers had been capable of function with impunity in Bolivia as a result of the DEA and the CIA had been kicked out” and remaining anti-drug officers within the nation had been simply bribed, prosecutors stated in court docket filings. 

Vasquez-Drew was later arrested in Panama on a U.S. warrant. He pleaded responsible in 2020 to a single rely of conspiring to smuggle greater than 450 kilograms of narcotics into the U.S. and was sentenced to 10 years in federal jail. 

Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of cocaine. However regardless of the claims of high-level authorities help there for drug trafficking, solely a small pattern cargo of 10.4 kilograms of cocaine, contained in bricks labeled “SOD” stashed in baggage aboard a business flight to Miami, had been ever seized as a part of the DEA sting. 

U.S. prosecutors allege that Bolivia’s antinarcotics company is rife with corruption and say that Davila-Perez was the highest antidrug cop at a time Morales’ resignation created an influence vacuum which fueled an increase in cocaine exports.

Dávila-Perez, a 57-year-old former police coronel, was eliminated as antinarcotics chief by Morales’ successor, interim President Jeanine Anez, and was reassigned to guide the police in Cochabamba state. 

It’s unclear how shut he’s to Morales. However the two appeared collectively in an October 2019 {photograph} celebrating Morales’ birthday standing subsequent to a number of desserts embellished with coca leaves. Additionally within the image was the previous head of Bolivia’s nationwide police.

Whereas the DEA has arrested quite a few Bolivian drug traffickers through the years, together with certainly one of Dávila-Perez’s predecessors, Morales himself has by no means been accused of drug trafficking. He has vociferously denounced the U.S.-led drug struggle in Latin America and defended conventional makes use of of coca — the uncooked ingredient of cocaine.

Overseas Minister Rogelio Mayta stated his authorities would consider the U.S. request that Dávila-Perez be extradited to face trial. President Luis Arce is a detailed ally of Morales.