The United States offers a millionaire reward for the former Bolivian anti-drug chief

U.S announced on Wednesday that it is offering a reward of up to five million dollars for anyone who delivers information that helps bring Maximiliano Dávila, former anti-drug chief in the former president’s government, to justice. Bolivian Evo Morales.

LOOK: Bolivia: Morales’ former anti-drug chief is sent to jail

The US State Department said in a statement that Dávila used his position as former director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking, or FELCN, to protect planes used to transport cocaine that would be distributed in the United States.

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He added that Dávila was involved in money laundering and drug trafficking before and during his leadership of the FELCN for about nine months in 2019.

Dávila was arrested last month in Bolivia and presented to the press. Police said Morales’ former anti-drug chief was trying to flee to Argentina.

The Bolivian was preventively sent to jail for six months and the Bolivian justice is investigating him for legitimizing illicit profits, since he allegedly made bank transactions that he could not explain.

Before entering the prison, Dávila said that he was the victim of the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, who introduced him to the media.

“I am innocent, I am a victim of that petty bourgeois, that government minister, because that petty bourgeois does not know what he is doing in this plural community state, because he has violated the entire process, because he is trying to incriminate President (Evo) Morales,” the Bolivian said.

Dávila, a former police colonel, was in charge of fighting drugs until Morales’ resignation in November 2019. He was then removed by the interim government of Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020).

His last position was that of departmental police commander in the central region of Cochabamba, which he held from November 2020 to March 2021 after the inauguration of President Luis Arce, Morales’ political heir.

In September 2020, Dávila and others were formally charged with drug trafficking by a grand jury in New York’s Southern District Court. The charges that Dávila faces are criminal association for the importation of cocaine into the United States and criminal association to carry weapons in relation to drug trafficking.

The Morales government expelled the US ambassador in 2009 and suspended the US drug enforcement agency DEA indefinitely on the grounds of alleged acts of espionage. The US embassy denied any such accusation.

Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez -of Morales’ party- spoke about Dávila on Wednesday.

“We do not believe that extradition is appropriate. Why should a compatriot be tried in another country when he can be tried in the country? The fight against drug trafficking has been nationalized, we have full sovereignty to fight drug trafficking, “he responded to press inquiries.

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Source: Elcomercio

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