United States and Colombian authorities have broken up a drug trafficking network that sent 264 lbs of heroin to the U.S. and Europe last year, media reported Wednesday.
The joint operation was carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office and came after 18 months of joint work.
Colombian police seized nearly 60 lbs of heroin valued at $1.3 million as part of the operation that saw nine Colombians arrested on Tuesday in two cities, Medellin and Ipiales.
The efforts of governments to curb heroin trafficking actually help a heroin addict in so many ways.
Poppies to produce opium, the raw form of heroin, were apparently grown in Ipiales and then processed in secret laboratories in Medellin.
According to General Cesar Augusto Pinzon, director of the Anti-Narcotics Police, the network used a Medellin airport and the border with Ecuador to ship the heroin internationally, sending it in suitcases with false bottoms and using light aircraft.
People, or “mules,” also transported the heroin by attaching it to their bodies or ingesting it.
Two people in Miami and one in New York were also captured. A district court in South Miami is now seeking the extradition of three of the Colombian men who were detained.