Major dragnet in Latin America. More than 14,000 people have been arrested and more than 8,000 firearms seized, Interpol said Tuesday. The operation, conducted from March 12 to April 2, also made it possible to "seize 203 tons of cocaine and other narcotic products estimated at about $ 5.7 billion, as well as 372 tons of drug precursors" (chemicals used in the manufacture of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, amphetamines), said the international organization based in Lyon in a statement.

In total, authorities in Central and South America made 14,260 arrests and confiscated some 8,263 illicit firearms, as well as 305,000 rounds of ammunition, in "the largest firearms operation ever coordinated by Interpol," dubbed Trigger IX, according to the same source. 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," according to the same source.

Link between arms trafficking and drug trafficking

"The fact that an operation targeting illicit firearms resulted in such massive drug seizures is further proof, if necessary, that these crimes are linked," Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock said in the statement. 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.

Fifteen countries in the region participated in the operation as well as a hundred law enforcement agencies, such as the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), said Interpol.

  • World
  • Interpol
  • Latin America
  • Arms
  • Arms trafficking
  • Drug trafficking