Chile’s border with Bolivia considered ‘totally’ vulnerable to drug trade

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The regional prosecutor of Chilean Tarapacá region, Raúl Arancibia, addressed the report of the “Observatory of Drug Trafficking in Chile”, which was released Wednesday (8) by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and which presented as main findings for the years 2020 and 2021 the attempts of widely known Mexican drug cartels to settle in the country and start the local production of illicit substances on national soil.

Chile’s border with Bolivia considered ‘totally’ vulnerable to drug trade

In Lo Que Queda del Día de Cooperativa, the prosecutor explained the main factors that could transform the country into more than a bridge for the distribution of substances. Specifically, by having the highest GDP per capita in South America, “we are a country with a standard of living well above that of other countries in the region”, and “therefore also are a large consumer of drugs”.

“We cannot ignore that (the high consumption of illicit substances). Let’s stop thinking that we are only a transit country, it is also an attractive market,” said Arancibia.

In addition, “Chile is an attractive country as a new route,” he said, warning that our country “is not yet a red or high-risk zone, but that is where we are heading if we don’t care.”

In this sense, the prosecutor emphasized that “the border with Bolivia is totally and absolutely vulnerable. Whoever wants to, comes in and goes out”.

“Drug shipments have been discovered in Europe whose last port from where they could have left is Chile. In Holland and Spain, large shipments have been discovered that came from our country, so that puts at risk our entire structure and maritime and commercial security in many aspects” and trade with other international partners, he reflected.

FRUSTRATED ADVANCES OF THE JALISCO NUEVA GENERACIÓN AND SINALOA CARTELS

By way of example, Arancibia confirmed that – as the report of the National Prosecutor’s Office pointed out Wednesday – cartels, such as the Jalisco Nueva Generación and the Sinaloa, have tried to penetrate the Chilean market with “important attempts” through drug trafficking that have been frustrated by the authorities.

In the first case, “the intention was to install a kind of high concentration and high-quality marijuana production center in Alto Hospicio, which was going to be indoors. (…) We were able to detect this operation, with the tools of the drug law to disrupt it and, in short, there is a Mexican who is in preventive prison in this case and who will go to oral trial soon,” detailed the prosecutor.

Regarding the second episode, “thanks to the intelligence analysis, it was determined that people coming from Mexico linked to the Sinaloa Cartel were settling in Iquique,” and those involved were apprehended, the prosecutor added.

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