Who is the former Bolivian anti-drug chief who is being investigated by the DEA? (and how close he is to Evo Morales)

In the last 11 years, bolivia has seen five heads of the anti-narcotics police unit be investigated, arrested or sentenced for crimes related to drug trafficking. The last one, just a couple of weeks ago, was Maximilian Davilawho was director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn) during the last year of Evo Morales in the power.

On January 22, at 11:30 p.m., the Bolivian police arrested Maximilian Davila at the Villazón – La Quiaca border crossing when trying to cross into Argentina. Three days later, the former anti-drug chief was preventively sent to the San Pedro prison in La Paz to continue the investigations against him for money laundering.

In September 2020, Dávila had been indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York for belonging to a network that trafficked cocaine from bolivia toward U.Saccording to an investigation carried out by the DEA during 2019.

The investigation also involved former Bolivian police chief Omar Rojas Echeverría, nicknamed the Pablo Escobar of Bolivia, and drug trafficker Jorge Roca Suárez alias “Techo e paja”, who had served a 27-year prison sentence in the United States for the same crime. crime. Both were arrested in Colombia and Peru, respectively, in a joint mega-operation called Andes that took place in March 2021.

Given this, the US requested Colombia the extradition of the accused. In the request, it was also learned that during his position in the Felcn, Dávila had been in charge of providing protection to the drug planes that carried the drug from Peru and Colombia to Bolivia, where it was refined and then sent to the north of the continent.

Once this was made public, Dávila was arrested in Bolivia.

Close to Evo

Dávila’s file is full of shadows and irregularities. In 2018 he was appointed National Director of Intelligence, despite not having the seniority required for the position, according to the Bolivian newspaper Página Siete. The following year, he was promoted to CEO of Felcn, where he remained until Evo Morales He resigned from the presidency in the midst of the social unrest due to accusations of fraud in the presidential elections.

Already at that time, Dávila was accused by his colleagues of extortion and offering protection to drug traffickers such as Pedro Montenegro, who ended up being extradited and sentenced in Brazil for that crime and testifying against Dávila himself.

But everything happened without his position being affected, largely protected by the closeness he maintained with Morales. An example of this close relationship is that a week before Evo resigned from the presidency, Dávila organized a birthday party for him at a Felcn base.

With the entry of Jeanine Áñez to the position, Dávila was removed from office, but when Luis Arce assumed the presidency he was appointed departmental commander of Cochabamba, the third most important region in the country.

power struggle

Dávila’s arrest brought about a confrontation between the former police chief and Interior Minister Eduardo Del Castillo. The first accused him of wanting to link Evo with the drug trafficking and tarnish the image of the former president. The second replied that no one would go unpunished under his administration.

A striking fight, to say the least, if we consider that the current government is an ally – not to say a shaky continuity – of Morales in power. Would we then be facing a breakdown of this alliance or the dismissal of an actor on whom too much interest has been placed?

“This is a monumental and unconcealable scandal. A crime of such characteristics is unlikely to be carried out alone, they must have had links with the Bolivian police, Customs, a cartel or drug trafficker abroad. In technical terms, when he is prosecuted for legitimizing illicit profits, he and his relatives will surely be investigated, but no further connection bias will be sought for this activity in which the State was evidently involved.”, he comments to Trade Bolivian politician and lawyer Germán “Chunka” Gutiérrez.

For Gutiérrez, this would be the way in which the government would seek to avoid the extradition already requested by the United States and prosecute him under a judicial system questioned for its closeness to the Executive. However, he does not rule out that the confrontation between Dávila and Del Castillo hides a division within the ruling party.

“Three factions are beginning to manifest themselves in the government: the historical faction of Evo Morales, who has not accepted that he is no longer president; that of Vice President Choquehuanca, who was a kind of intellectual father of multinationality; and little by little Arce appears making decisions. The president at some point had to realize that he was president, it is natural. As loyal and grateful as he is to Morales, he must fulfill his role”, he adds.

The Bolivian politician and journalist, Virginio Lema, agrees that Dávila’s arrest would be an attempt to avoid his extradition and investigation in the United States. “The MAS deputies came out announcing that Bolivia does not have an extradition treaty with the US, which is absolutely false. It makes me suspicious that the same day the DEA investigation comes out, he is imprisoned. If the DEA found it, it was going to take it away and there you were really going to have big problems.”, he comments to this newspaper.

Lema also confirms that the government is going through a period of power dispute between clearly marked factions. “At this moment there is a very strong low intensity war in the Government. Arce’s ministers ask that Morales let them govern, but on the other hand there is the MAS loggia elite that wants to return to power and is hindered by the current ministers. The fight will continue until they change the ministers to put their people or remove Arce”, he assures.