More than 14000,<> arrests in Latin America in an operation coordinated by Interpol

The operation mobilized fifteen Latin American countries. Here in El Salvador, in March 2022 (illustration). AP - Salvador Melendez

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

The international criminal police organization based in Lyon (France) announced on Tuesday, April 18, the arrest of more than 14,000 people and the seizure of more than 8,000 firearms in a vast operation in Latin America.

Advertising

Read more

Interpol calls it "the largest firearms operation" it has ever coordinated. Its name: Trigger IX. The operation mobilized fifteen countries in Central and South America, as well as a hundred law enforcement agencies, such as the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Between 12 March and 2 April, the authorities made 14,260 arrests and confiscated some 8,263 illicit firearms and 305,000 rounds of ammunition. Some 100,000 pieces of ammunition were recovered in Uruguay, "the object of international trafficking by two European nationals, marking the largest seizure of this type ever made in the country," the international organization said in a statement.

203 tons of narcotics seized

The raid also resulted in the seizure of 203 tons of cocaine and other narcotic products valued at approximately $5.7 billion, as well as 372 tons of "drug precursors" (chemicals used in the manufacture of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, amphetamines). "The fact that an operation targeting illicit firearms resulted in such massive drug seizures is further proof, if necessary, that these crimes are linked," said Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock.

Trigger IX also exposed a range of other crimes, ranging from corruption to terrorist activities, and dismantled 20 organized crime groups in different countries. Members of the Balkan Cartel, Brazil's powerful organized crime network Primeiro Comando da Capital and Mara Salvatrucha, a Salvadoran mafia operating in Central America and the United States, were arrested, all involved in arms trafficking, according to Interpol.

Eleven victims of human trafficking were freed in Paraguay thanks to this raid.

(

With AFP)

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

• Criminality
• Drug