Guatemala City, Guatemala
The security forces of Guatemala They arrested this Tuesday an alleged drug dealer requested by the United States for his extradition, several sources reported.
The alleged drug trafficker, Amílcar Chávez Barrera, 41, was detained in “a strategic operation” in the department of Escuintla, about 100 kilometers south of Guatemala City, according to the National Civil Police (PNC) in a press release.
Chávez Barrera was arrested by “anti-drug agents” of the PNC in a village in the Iztapa municipality of Escuintla, on the Guatemalan coast to the Pacific Ocean.
According to the Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office), Chávez Barrera is “required” by the “United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia”, for which he will soon be extradited to the United States.
Chávez Barrera was “identified” as “a member” of an organization of drug traffic “which operated from Central America” transporting “cocaine illegally” to the United States, the Prosecutor General’s Office added in a press release.
The investigation in the North American country began in 2015, said the MP.
According to the investigations in United StatesChávez Barrera was “responsible” for “acquiring boats and recruiting crew members to transport cocaine shipments by sea.”
The defendant’s arrest was made under a court order dated March 9 and issued by the Third Criminal Sentence Court, according to local police.
Guatemala has captured at least ten suspected drug traffickers for extradition in the past six months, including Erik Salvador Súñiga Rodríguez, a municipal mayor of a border city with Mexico who surrendered last December after being appointed by the US Treasury Department. as an “international drug trafficker”.
Súñiga Rodríguez was extradited to Texas in December and died last week in the United States of a terminal illness, according to local media.
Due to its geographical position, Guatemala is used by drug trafficking cartels as a bridge to transport narcotics from South America to the United States, according to the opinion of experts on the subject. EFE
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