Police officers in Chaco Province have uncovered more than 32 kilos of cocaine, the latest in a series of drug-trafficking revelations.
Officers of the Roque Sáenz Peña Squad 1 of Villa Ángela, while raking up ground near the city of Avía Teraí, Chaco Province, found 30 packets of the drug.
They were found 60 metres away from the site where a small plane with a Bolivian number plate CP-3123 crashed last week carrying 324 kilos of the drug. Part of the cargo seized and made available to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Roque Sáenz Peña.
The aircraft had crashed on July 18 around 4 pm, between Concepción del Bermejo and Avia Teraí, five kilometres from a rural estate known as “La Aurora” on National Route 16, near a primary school and some 200 kilometres from the capital city of Resistencia.
The local police station in Concepción del Bermejo was informed of the accident by local residents and agents immediately went to the site, but were surprised when they found nobody inside the aircraft.
The search for the occupants of the small plane continues. Only the cargo of the narcotics was there, which once it had undergone field testing was shown to be cocaine.
Based on enquiries, some 270 kilos from the cargo vanished, coincidentally with the disappearance of its two occupants, who were fruitlessly sought in hospitals and healthcare centres in the area.
Local residents claim that they had been rescued by a van and hidden.
Judge Mianovich, investigating the origin of the small plane that crashed in Avia Terai, Chaco, had been questioned when appointed, due to his kinship with Governor Jorge Capitanich.
General chief Juan Ramón Duarte, General Director of Problematic Consumption of the Chaco Police, asserted that the seized cocaine “could have something to do with the case pending with the National Police since last year” involving an international gang, using the Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina route, to then send it to Europe.
The fact that the small plane had been flying low when it plummeted, and now a bag with the 32 kilos has been found in the bushes, led to the conjecture that this cargo was prepared to be dropped like “bombs” in the area.
Yet another version that the final destination of the aircraft was Rosario has now gained ground.
As published by Diario Chaco, the news caused a scandal in Bolivia and the minister of Government had to account for it.
The small plane found on Chaco soil had been seized in June by Bolivian authorities after a suspicious flight to Paraguay.
He added that Eduardo del Castillo then explained that the prosecutor of the case decided to deliver the plane to their owners after no traces of drug had been found there.
Days after being returned, it was found upside down in the province with over 300 kilos of cocaine.
For that reason, Castillo pointed to the prosecutor and the expert examination having been conducted in the wrong venue, and that he would bring criminal charges against him.
“This small plane was placed in the hands of the Public Prosecutor for the micro-aspiration. There are plenty of things to investigate. This small plane was allegedly free from any controlled substance and two days later fell carrying drugs in a neighbouring country. So we will bring appropriate charges against the prosecutor and the experts”, the minister stated.
A particular feature is that among the seized loaves there is a black hand, but also the figure of a bearded man to identify the drug.
– TIMES/PERFIL
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