PDI dismantles drug trafficking organization, seizing a million dollars worth of cocaine

SANTIAGO.-  Officers belonging to the Organized Crime Unit (Brico) of the Police Investigations Department (PDI) have seized close to a million dollars in cocaine chlorohyrdrate after dismantling an organization that had been smuggling the drug into Chile from Bolivia.

The operation named “Resplandor” lasted two months and managed to capture the financial head of the gang, identified as 26 year-old Carlos Alberto Alarcón Salinas.  Additionally, officers arrested those who had been transporting the drug:  Luis Enrique Valenzuela Merino (60) and his son, Angelo Valenzuela Espinoza (33), as well as the middleman in charge of paying the transporters, Pedro Sánchez Fariña (25).

The individuals who were arrested had been transporting the drug from Calama to the Metropolitan Region and then returning to the north using station wagons that were bought specifically for the activity and registered in the name of the drug traffickers.