LA PAZ, Bolivia: Bolivia has mobilized more than 2,250 security agents in a massive operation closing in on an alleged cocaine trafficker who has ricocheted around the world to elude capture, a senior official said on Sunday.
The target of the hunt is Sebastian Enrique Marset Cabrera, wanted on drug charges in his native Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and the United States.
“A series of raids have been carried out in the department of Santa Cruz… (for) a drug trafficker of high value for our region and the whole world,” Bolivian Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo said.
“We have mobilized more than 2,250 police officers, more than 144 motorized vehicles, we have carried out more than 23 operations, six raids, and the arrest of 12 people,” Del Castillo said.
Marset Cabrera, who is 32, is believed to be in Santa Cruz, a sprawling energy-producing region of southeastern Bolivia abutting Brazil and Paraguay.
Del Castillo said Marset Cabrera is accompanied by his Peruvian wife and three children.
“In the coming hours, we will achieve the detention of Mr. Sebastian Enrique Marset Cabrera,” Del Castillo avowed.
Heavily armed police raided a luxury home in Santa Cruz, a city of 1.9 million inhabitants that is the capital of the department of the same name, and entered other properties, an AFP journalist witnessed.
Del Castillo said raids during the day netted 17 long guns, a pistol, nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition, bullet-proof vests, and 31 vehicles. — AFP/APP
