Bolivia’s former anti-narcotics chief was extradited to the USA on Thursday to face federal drug trafficking costs in a New York court docket.
Authorities stated that Maximiliano Dávila, who served as anti-narcotics chief within the remaining months of Evo Morales ‘ 2006-2019 administration, helped facilitate planeload shipments of cocaine to the USA. In keeping with the U.S. Justice Division, Dávila exploited his place “to safe entry to Bolivian airfields for cocaine transport and to rearrange for members of Bolivian regulation enforcement below his command—together with people armed with machineguns—to offer safety for these drug masses.”
Dávila — who authorities say is also called “Macho” — boarded a personal jet despatched from the U.S. particularly for his extradition.
On Feb. 2, 2022, the U.S. State Division introduced a reward of as much as $5 million for data resulting in Dávila’s conviction. He’s charged with conspiring to offer prime degree safety for cocaine shipments to the U.S. in addition to associated weapons costs involving the possession of machine weapons. In keeping with the State Division, Dávila “allegedly used his place to safeguard plane used to move cocaine to 3rd nations, for subsequent distribution in the USA.”
Juan Karita / AP
In late November, Bolivia’s Supreme Court docket authorized Dávila’s quick extradition to the U.S. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from Bolivia in 2008, accusing it of plotting to overthrow his authorities at a time rising commodity costs and a wave of leftist politics all through South America have been difficult longstanding U.S. affect within the area. In the meantime, the 2 nations have not exchanged ambassadors in additional than 15 years.
The drug investigation that led to the costs towards Dávila was began by the DEA’s Particular Operations Division in 2017, based on court docket data.
As a part of the probe, prison informants working below the DEA’s course recorded conversations wherein a co-defendant of Dávila bragged of gaining access to an MD-11 navy cargo aircraft to move 60 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
The co-defendant, Percy Vasquez-Drew, stated that “he and different traffickers had been capable of function with impunity in Bolivia as a result of the DEA and the CIA had been kicked out” and remaining anti-drug officers within the nation have been simply bribed, prosecutors stated in court docket filings.
Vasquez-Drew was later arrested in Panama on a U.S. warrant. He pleaded responsible in 2020 to a single depend of conspiring to smuggle greater than 450 kilograms of narcotics into the U.S. Earlier this 12 months, his sentence was diminished to 100 months in federal jail.
Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of cocaine.
It is unclear how shut Dávila is to Morales, a former coca grower. However the two appeared collectively in an October 2019 {photograph} celebrating Morales’ birthday standing subsequent to a number of desserts adorned with coca leaves. Additionally within the image was the previous head of Bolivia’s nationwide police.
Whereas the DEA has arrested quite a few Bolivian drug traffickers over time, together with one in every of Dávila’s predecessors, Morales himself has by no means been accused of drug trafficking. He has vociferously denounced the U.S.-led drug struggle in Latin America and defended conventional makes use of of coca – the uncooked ingredient of cocaine.
