Pennsylvania’s Attorney General announced Monday the break-up of a US$4.8 million narco-trafficking operation which shipped cocaine and heroin from Colombia to the U.S.
Two men who allegedly worked as drug mules were arrested in October, leading to the placing of charges against five further members of the ring on Monday.
According to Pennsylvanian authorities, the men would each swallow up to a kilo of heroin or cocaine, wrapped in plastic, in pellet form while in Colombia, then fly to the U.S. where they would excrete the pellets and sell them on.
The mules, identified as Herbert Larios and Walter Von Roestel-Navarro, both Colombian, are thought to have brought more than 12 kilos of cocaine and 12 kilos of heroin each to the U.S. in the last three years. The total street value of this is US$4.8 million.
Among those arrested was Larios’ brother, who resides in the U.S.