A drug pipeline shipping cocaine from Costa Rica to Norfolk, Virginia in the United States was broken up by authorities, The Virginia Pilot reported Wednesday. Two men were arrested on charges of importing more than 10 pounds of cocaine.
The bust is part of a push by U.S. authorities to stop shipments at their source.
“Our foreign offices have built a better rapport with foreign governments,” Mike Kennedy, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Norfolk, told The Pilot. “The communication’s flowing better back and forth.”
Glen Stephen Dellibovi, 46, and Gerard Enriquez, 42, were arrested Friday, according to a court affidavit filed by a DEA agent, after receiving what they believed to be a 5-kilogram shipment of cocaine from Costa Rica. The arrangement was all part of a sting set up by an undercover DEA agent acting as an employee of a commercial airline. The agent told Dellibovi he was willing to sneak drugs into the country. Dellibovi offered the agent $30,000 to bring the 5-kilograms of cocaine into the United States as a “test run.” In the affidavit, Dellibovi said he had been “he had been in the business for the better half of the past 30 years.” .
The operation ended with Dellibovi and Enriquez arrested by DEA agents in a shopping center parking lot after being delivered a dummy package of campaign.
Last year, Jeffrey A. Benoit, a Canadian from Ontario, was arrested in a similar sting operation involving Costa Rica, The Pilot reported. He was later sentenced to 70 months in prison.
