BOGOTA.- The police of Colombia and the United States Attorney’s Office announced the capture in both countries of 21 people associated with a drug organization, of which 10 detained in the South American nation are “extraditable.”
“We captured, in USA y Colombiato 21 members of an organization dedicated to money laundering and drug trafficking,” General William Salamanca, director of the Colombian police, wrote this Friday on his X account.
The arrests took place between Thursday and Friday, a police spokesman said.
According to General Salamanca, 12 captures in Colombia“including 10 extraditable ones”, were carried out in the departments of Valle del Cauca (southwest), Amazonas (southeast), Meta (center) and Antioquia (northwest).
Nine other individuals were arrested in the United States in Seattle (northeast), Boston and New Jersey (northwest).
The operation named “Red Rose” was coordinated between the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) American, the Colombian police and the prosecutors’ offices of both countries.
The organization “laundered” money of illicit origin through a network of exchange houses. Thus, capital amounting to 2.5 million dollars per month was entered into the Colombian banking system through transfers from “hotel companies and commercial establishments,” says a statement from the Colombian police released this Friday.
The same group is responsible, according to authorities, for the shipment of 500 kilos of cocaine monthly from the port of Buenaventura in the Colombian Pacific (southwest) “to Puerto Rico and Central American countries”, with the final destination being the United States.
The operation allowed the seizure of 1 million dollars, 34 kilos of cocaine, 2 kilos of heroin, 75,000 fentanyl pills, 15 kilos of synthetic drugs and 8 firearms.
Source: With information from AFP
