Drug Suspect Nabbed, Had Another Suspect’s ID

Aaron Lee Fileger, the latest U.S. citizen arrested here for alleged drug trafficking back home, was traveling and working with someone else’s passport.

If he was striving to avoid detection, he picked the wrong passport because it belonged to Russell Bloom – who also has arrest warrants for drug trafficking in the United States.

On Monday, Immigration police arrested Fileger, wanted on warrants from Pennsylvania, after a week’s worth of surveillance, Public Security Ministry spokesman Carlos Hidalgo said. The surveillance began after a call from an anonymous tipster.

“The surprise was that Bloom was also wanted,” Hidalgo said. “He’s in some other country yet to be arrested and we think they’re friends. But (Fileger) confessed to the U.S. Embassy his true identity.”

The spokesman said it is a strange case because the passport is authentic but the photo is clearly of Fileger and not Bloom.

Hidalgo said the arrestee entered the country in March and, because of his confession, he would be deported by Friday.

Fileger was allegedly working for a call center in La Sabana in western San José using the Bloom name.