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The operations were carried out both on the Caribbean coast and on the Pacific coast of Panama and four motorboats were also seized, on board of which 8 Colombian citizens, 4 Costa Ricans and a Nicaraguan, stopped for their alleged connection with the deposits.
Panamanian authorities reported this Monday 30-N that they seized more than 5.5 tons of drugs over the weekend and arrested thirteen people in five operations carried out on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of the country.
A statement from the National Aeronaval Service (Senan) indicated that in total “more than 5.5 tons” of drugs were seized, unspecified, while in a press conference the drug prosecutor, Javier Caraballo, specified that in the five operations seized 5,977 packages of illicit substances.
The operations were carried out both on the Caribbean coast and on the Pacific coast of Panama and four motorboats were also seized, on board of which 8 Colombian citizens, 4 Costa Ricans and a Nicaraguan, stopped for their alleged connection with the deposits.
These citizens will be presented in the next few hours before the surety judges and the prosecutor’s office accuse them of the crime of international drug trafficking and demand their arrest, the prosecutor said.
So far this year the various security forces in Panama have seized about 72 tons of drugs, Caraballo added.
Senan Commissioner Edson Castillo said that agency alone has seized 51,321 packages of drugs so far, of which 36,846 were cocaine.
Castillo appreciated Senan’s efforts in the fight against drugs and acknowledged the “support of the United States, Colombia and Costa Rica” for the success of these operations.
Panamanian authorities reported on Sunday that they seized 1,170 drug packs and arrested three people in an operation in Pacific waters coordinated with Colombia and the United States.
The prosecutor Caraballo told Efe that, following the covid-19 pandemic and its consequences, such as the significant reduction in economic activities in the world, including maritime traffic, traffickers have resumed the mode of using motorboats with large load to transfer the drug.
Before the pandemic, the trend was to use fishing boats with more modest quantities of narcotics, he explained.
Caraballo also highlighted international cooperation to combat drug trafficking as a fundamental tool for stopping traffic between the south and north of the continent.
“There is a very strong alliance between the countries in the area: Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and direct cooperation from the United States, which form a solid bloc that has tried to block the road to drugs,” the prosecutor said.
In 2019, Panama’s security forces seized 90.99 tons of drugs, the vast majority of cocaine, a record for this country, and arrested 1,013 people linked to drug trafficking, 10% of them foreigners.
Panama is used by transnational drug trafficking groups as a bridge for the transport of drugs produced in the south of the continent and its main destination is the United States, the largest cocaine user in the world
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