Anti-narcotics police have arrested six members of a network that trafficked heroin and cocaine to the United States.
According to Caracol Radio, authorities reported Friday that the network recruited people with scarce resources to carry the drugs, either internally, attached to their bodies or in suitcases with false bottoms.
Among those arrested in the operation, which was carried out by Colombian and U.S. authorities, were the leaders of the group, Oscar Alexander Castro Portela, alias “El Orejon” and Ginno Alexander Hernandez Cardona, alias “El Peluquero,” along with the U.S. link Juan San Miguel Ramirez, alias “El Sobrino.”
Those arrested have an extradition order from New York authorities, for the federal crime of drug trafficking, said the Director of the Anti-narcotics Police Department, General Cesar Augusto Pinzon, according to newspaper El Espectador.
According to Pinzon, the arrests occurred after a year and a half of investigation, during which authorities determined that the drugs were being sent from the El Dorado Airport in Bogota and received by El Sobrino in New York.
The arrests took place in Bogota and Villavicencio in the Meta department, and the municipality of Samaniego in Nariño.