“We didn't catch a big fish, but a drug trafficking whale.” This is how Bolivian Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo illustrated the extradition to Brazil of Lourival da Fonseca, a Brazilian drug trafficker who was arrested in Bolivia on February 15th. The next day, Fonseca was taken by helicopter from the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Puerto Quijarro, on the border with Mato Grosso do Sul, the state the criminal allegedly flooded with Bolivian cocaine for more than a decade.
According to research by his country's press, Fonseca is considered the “third owner” of the Brazilian drug market, concentrated in the regions of this country bordering Bolivia. This justifies Minister Del Castillo's joy when he announced his expulsion from Bolivia. “He is one of the biggest drug traffickers that has ever existed in our country,” he told the press.
Lourival Maximo da Fonseca, alias Tião, and also Loro, 56 years old, were arrested at the Santa Filomena farm near San Ignacio de Velasco, 476 kilometers east of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The police had been deployed in this area for days. A Brazilian man was shot more than 15 times and abandoned in his home in the city on Carnival Sunday, and two days later Bolivia celebrated the “ch'alla,” or self-immolation, in honor of Pachamana, the goddess of the earth, a Bolivian with a past He was shot dead at a party due to drug trafficking.
These crimes are relatively uncommon in this region of the country dominated by agribusiness, logging and tourism. Authorities attributed it to the fight between two Brazilian cartels, the PCC and the Red Command, for control of Bolivian drug export routes to Brazil. Police sources consulted by this newspaper would not confirm whether there is a connection between the murders in San Ignacio and Fonseca.
According to these sources, after a long period of trading with Brazil, Fonseca began to use the opposite route, namely the one that leads to Chile. He is believed to be the mastermind behind the huge shipments of cocaine disguised in timber shipments that left the forested Bolivian Chiquitania, where San Ignacio de Velasco is located, for the Chilean ports on the Pacific where most of the trade takes place. Bolivian with the world.
Fonseca already had two Brazilian injunctions. Bolivian police launched their search after seizing a cache of 8.7 tonnes of liquid cocaine impregnated in a shipment of timber to the Netherlands in late December last year. Due to the volume of drugs seized, it was the most important operation in the history of combating drug trafficking in Bolivia. The highlight was the arrest and expulsion of the suspected mastermind.
The criminal used the name Ivo Anderson Dos Santos in Bolivia, hiding behind discreet camouflage and living a very different lifestyle than the Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, who last year brought the national authorities into a situation in which he made his filmed escape felt uncomfortable in the country. Marset remains a refugee, reportedly hiding in Paraguay. More than $10 million worth of property was seized. Fonseca, on the other hand, only formally had an exchange office and a gas station. He was with three other Brazilian citizens when he was arrested. The police are looking for his wife and two children.
The government will exploit this blow to crime in its controversy with former President Evo Morales, a former mentor who became President Luis Arce's main opponent. Morales accused the ruling party of “cooperating with the drug trade.” Against this background, Del Castillo has presented data on what his management has achieved in the fight against drugs and denounced the existence of links between some coca growers, Morales' unconditional farmers and drug traffickers.
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