Police escort former police colonel Maximiliano Davila, center, as he was presented to the media at a Bolivian Police Command office in La Paz, Bolivia, Jan. 23, 2022.
Juan Karita / AP
In late November, Bolivia’s Supreme Court approved Dávila’s immediate extradition to the U.S. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from Bolivia in 2008, accusing it of plotting to overthrow his government at a time rising commodity prices and a wave of leftist politics throughout South America were challenging longstanding U.S. influence in the region. Meanwhile, the two countries haven’t exchanged ambassadors in more than 15 years.
The drug investigation that led to the charges against Dávila was started by the DEA’s Special Operations Division in 2017, according to court records.
As part of the probe, criminal informants working under the DEA’s direction recorded conversations in which a co-defendant of Dávila bragged of having access to an MD-11 military cargo plane to transport 60 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
The co-defendant, Percy Vasquez-Drew, said that “he and other traffickers had been able to operate with impunity in Bolivia because the DEA and the CIA had been kicked out” and remaining anti-drug officials in the country were easily bribed, prosecutors said in court filings.
Vasquez-Drew was later arrested in Panama on a U.S. warrant. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to a single count of conspiring to smuggle more than 450 kilograms of narcotics into the U.S. Earlier this year, his sentence was reduced to 100 months in federal prison.
Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of cocaine.
It’s unclear how close Dávila is to Morales, a former coca grower. But the two appeared together in an October 2019 photograph celebrating Morales’ birthday standing next to several cakes decorated with coca leaves. Also in the picture was the former head of Bolivia’s national police.
While the DEA has arrested numerous Bolivian drug traffickers over the years, including one of Dávila’s predecessors, Morales himself has never been accused of drug trafficking. He has vociferously denounced the U.S.-led drug war in Latin America and defended traditional uses of coca – the raw ingredient of cocaine.
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Publish date : 2024-12-12 22:32:00
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