More than an open secret, it was a fact that was heard from time to time in police headquarters: that cars stolen in the capital or in other parts of Chile were exchanged to foreign citizens for drugs, which – among other things – would explain the rise in car thefts in recent years and the large existence of “chutos” cars (that is, of unknown origin) in Bolivia.
Last weekend the above was completely proven, after an investigation carried out by the South Prosecutor’s Office and the South Anti-Narcotics Brigade (Briant), in which a group of drug traffickers from the Metropolitan Region was recorded on video – which also had arms in the south of the country – exchanging a Peugeot Boxer van with its cloned patent, for 20 kilos of marijuana, in Alto Hospicio. It is worth mentioning that the value of a kilo of this wholesale drug is on the order of 500 thousand pesos, depending on its quality, freshness and origin, which is why drug traffickers did not pay more than 10 million pesos for a vehicle that is worth at least the double.
By the way, in addition to the film evidence obtained in the case, in this operation, called “Travesía Sur”, there are telephone taps that show that this was the mode of operation of the group, which was led by a Chilean and a Venezuelan.
The investigation culminated in the arrest of eight people, two of them 16-year-old teenagers, and the seizure of more than 22 kilos of drugs, since, in addition to the cannabis sativathe PDI also arrested one of the members of the gang with more than two kilos of cocaine hydrochloride that he intended to sell in Puerto Varas, on the other side of the country.
In this regard, Deputy Commissioner Carlos Leyton, from Briant Sur, told The counter that “in this case it was possible to observe, through the surveillance carried out, the delivery of the vehicle mainly to this foreign gang, which received it, inspected it and subsequently delivered the agreed upon drug to the gang, which was in charge of transporting the drug later to the Metropolitan Region.”
The officer explained that one of the objectives of the investigation, which was recently formalized before the 15th Guarantee Court of the capital, is to establish the origin and current destination of the van, which was in the possession of the drug suppliers. The vehicle – he detailed – “is in the name of a person from the Metropolitan Region”, but everything indicates that its patent was cloned.
The cell phone was taken from Taltal to Iquique by a 39-year-old subject known as “El Peluca”, a habitual criminal with a history of vehicle theft, who in an intercept of his phone says that he traveled north with his “wife.” , referring to a 16-year-old girl. In addition to the minor that the individual qualifies as his spouse (who is not), another teenager of the same age and a fourth subject, a Colombian who served as an escort for both, also traveled in the Peugeot, since the young girls had a function. essential in the entire criminal framework of the gang, because once they received the drug (20 kilos of marijuana in exchange for the Peugeot), the group separated into two.
Your lady”
The phase prior to the group’s separation was recorded in one of the audios intercepted by the PDI, in which “El Peluca” is heard talking to another subject, from whom he asked for money to return from Tocopilla:
—No, brother, no, I came here just to get a vehicle, you bastard. I took the driver over here, with a flaiteao, cachai? Maybe it’s brigit, poh huevón, if it’s any hours, it’s a cove, poh crazy, it’s almost two thousand kilometers.
“Yes po, creek, egg.
—And besides, the entire bridge route…
—Would you come and make my return?
—Yes, poh, bastard.
—I thought you were with Jimmy’s things, looking for those Jimmy eggs…
—No poh, if my wife comes here with those eggs, cachái. That is, they arrive with the truck to the other side of customs, and they return with Jimmy’s roe. —explained, making it clear that the subject known as “Jimmy” was the leader of the gang and that shortly before arriving at the Loa customs, the two teenagers, plus their escort (the Colombian), got off the bus in which They were traveling, after which they walked towards the coastline, to avoid police and customs control.
After walking for about three hours, the group resumed their journey towards the highway, in order to take another bus, but they did not travel directly to Santiago, but rather they made stops, in case they were followed. That way, they got off in Antofagasta. From there, with the drugs in camping backpacks, they boarded another bus, bound for La Serena and, from that city, they took one that arrived at Estación Central, where a vehicle was waiting for them that traveled with the young women and the foreign citizen to San Bernardo, where the PDI detained them all, while another police team arrested “El Peluca” in Osorno, while he was traveling to Puerto Varas to sell two kilos of cocaine hydrochloride that had been delivered to him in Iquique.
In this regard, the prosecutor in the case, Iván Rencoret, pointed out that the first formalization against the group – made up of five Chileans, two Venezuelans and the Colombian – was exclusively for the illicit trafficking of narcotics, aggravated in this case by the use of two minors for it. In a second phase, he indicated, they will study possible accusations against “El Peluca” due to the relationship he had with the minor, as well as what is related to the destination of the cars.
In that sense, he admitted that “at least of the cases that I have seen, this is the first time I have seen that drugs are exchanged for vehicles. On some occasion, in a previous case, I saw that there was a kind of change per vehicle, but it did not give the impression that it was a methodology that people used as a way of operating, but rather it gave the impression that it had been a punctual aspect, that they needed money that they had not been able to get, and it occurred to them to deliver a vehicle as part of the payment.”
However, he specified that in this case it is different, since “the wiretaps that we were able to capture show that it was not the first time that this type of exchange was carried out, and it was always replicated with a common pattern, which has to do with the delivery of vehicles in exchange for drugs.”