Costa Rican authorities dismantled on Tuesday a drug gang and arrested 13 people, four of them Colombians, including the alleged leader of the organization, an evangelical preacher.
In the early hours of the morning, agents of the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) conducted 18 raids in various parts of the country that resulted in the arrests.
“They were bringing the drugs from Colombia,” said the director of the OIJ, Randall Zúñiga, particularly from the Valle del Cauca area (southwest of Colombia) where the city of Cali is located.
The organization was mainly in charge of bringing marijuana to Costa Rica, which they introduced by sea through the southern area of the Pacific coast, near the border with Panama.
“They had the collaboration of a Coast Guard officer who would warn the organization if they went out on patrol,” added Zuñiga.
They would then transport it by land to San Jose to sell it.
The investigation lasted two years, during which authorities seized 5.5 tons of marijuana from this organization in four different anti-drug operations throughout 2022.
During the raids, 280 police and judicial agents participated.
