Peru’s anti-drug police, Dirandro, seized nearly two tons of cocaine bound for Europe this weekend during raids on two houses used by the same organized crime ring.
And according to daily La República, among those arrested was a rookie policewoman whom the traffickers infiltrated into a key police investigations unit to provide inside information on the authorities’ movements.
Police broke into the first of two houses on Saturday at about 11 p.m. in the port city of Callao, where they found 526 packages of cocaine.
Officer Cathia María Clendenes, was found in the residence, armed with her service pistol, and was arrested, La República reported. Clendenes said she was in the house as part of an undercover operation, authorized by her superiors — a claim rejected by Police Gen. Antero Huaroto, chief of the investigations unit she was assigned to, according to the newspaper.
Police later seized 1,280 packages of cocaine stashed in mattress in a home in Lima’s La Molina district. The cocaine’s street value in Europe is reportedly worth more than $100 million.
Three Peruvian men and a 62-year-old industrial engineer with Venezuelan nationality have reportedly been arrested in connection to the operation. República reported a possible romantic link between Officer Clendenes and one of the alleged traffickers.
The chief of Dirandro’s Investigative Division for Illicit Drug Trafficking, Col. César Cortijo, told El Comercio the ring may be connected to Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro also said the drugs likely came from the Apurímac and Ene river valleys, VRAE, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates some 30 percent of Peru’s coca leaf is cultivated, the raw material used to make cocaine.
“We don’t have any doubt the drug came from the VRAE and that it was going to leave the country,” said Alva Castro.
