Bolivia’s former anti-narcotics chief was extradited to the United States on Thursday to face federal drug trafficking expenses in a New York courtroom.
Authorities mentioned that Maximiliano Dávila, who served as anti-narcotics chief within the ultimate months of Evo Morales ‘ 2006-2019 administration, helped facilitate planeload shipments of cocaine to the United States. According to the U.S. Justice Department, Dávila exploited his place “to safe entry to Bolivian airfields for cocaine transport and to rearrange for members of Bolivian regulation enforcement beneath his command—together with people armed with machineguns—to supply safety for these drug hundreds.”
Dávila — who authorities say is also called “Macho” — boarded a personal jet despatched from the U.S. particularly for his extradition.
On Feb. 2, 2022, the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $5 million for info resulting in Dávila’s conviction. He is charged with conspiring to supply high degree safety for cocaine shipments to the U.S. in addition to associated weapons expenses involving the possession of machine weapons. According to the State Department, Dávila “allegedly used his place to safeguard plane used to move cocaine to 3rd international locations, for subsequent distribution within the United States.”
Juan Karita / AP
In late November, Bolivia’s Supreme Court accepted Dávila’s fast extradition to the U.S. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from Bolivia in 2008, accusing it of plotting to overthrow his authorities at a time rising commodity costs and a wave of leftist politics all through South America had been difficult longstanding U.S. affect within the area. Meanwhile, the 2 international locations have not exchanged ambassadors in additional than 15 years.
The drug investigation that led to the fees towards Dávila was began by the DEA’s Special Operations Division in 2017, in keeping with courtroom information.
As a part of the probe, legal informants working beneath the DEA’s path recorded conversations through which a co-defendant of Dávila bragged of accessing an MD-11 army cargo aircraft to move 60 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
The co-defendant, Percy Vasquez-Drew, mentioned that “he and different traffickers had been in a position to function with impunity in Bolivia as a result of the DEA and the CIA had been kicked out” and remaining anti-drug officers within the nation had been simply bribed, prosecutors mentioned in courtroom filings.
Vasquez-Drew was later arrested in Panama on a U.S. warrant. He pleaded responsible in 2020 to a single rely of conspiring to smuggle greater than 450 kilograms of narcotics into the U.S. Earlier this yr, his sentence was diminished to 100 months in federal jail.
Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of cocaine.
It’s unclear how shut Dávila is to Morales, a former coca grower. But the 2 appeared collectively in an October 2019 {photograph} celebrating Morales’ birthday standing subsequent to a number of muffins adorned with coca leaves. Also within the image was the previous head of Bolivia’s nationwide police.
While the DEA has arrested quite a few Bolivian drug traffickers over time, together with one in every of Dávila’s predecessors, Morales himself has by no means been accused of drug trafficking. He has vociferously denounced the U.S.-led drug battle in Latin America and defended conventional makes use of of coca – the uncooked ingredient of cocaine.
