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Costa Rican police nab drug-trafficking band

Agents from Costa Rica’s Drug Control Police (PCD) on Tuesday arrested a band of four Colombians and two Costa Ricans accused of smuggling drugs to the United States and Europe.

Surveillance operations took place in various parts of the capital and in the northwestern province of Guanacaste.

“They used the postal system to ship drugs hidden in books, recruited people to carry it on or in their bodies and [used] the traditional method of hiding it in trucks,” Public Security Vice Minister Celso Gamboa said at a press conference.

PCD officers found various amounts of cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamines and marijuana, as well as weapons and drug packaging equipment.

Operations to dismantle the drug network began in January, when a Dutch woman and a Nicaraguan man were arrested in their respective countries. The woman was found in possession of 53 ovules of cocaine, and the man was carrying drug money.

Last year, Costa Rican drug officials seized 15 tons of cocaine.

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