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Guatemala anti-drug chief arrested for smuggling

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 19:47 CST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Guatemala's anti-drug chief and two of his senior officials have been arrested on charges of conspiring to import and distribute cocaine in the United States, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

The Guatemalan government assisted in the investigation but the arrests was an embarrassment for President Oscar Berger, who has tried to clean up the poor Central American country's image as corrupt and crime ridden.

The three were arrested in the United States on Tuesday after arriving in the country from Guatemala and have been charged in an indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in Washington.

If convicted, they face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The three defendants are Adan Castillo, the head of Guatemala's anti-narcotics agency; Jorge Aguilar, the second in command; and Rubilio Orlando, a member of the agency responsible for security sweeps at the Atlantic port city of Santo Tomas.

In Guatemala City, Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann told reporters, "It is a powerful blow against the infiltration of organized crime." He said Washington had first alerted Guatemala's government that Castillo was involved in drug smuggling six months ago.

Vielmann said Guatemala had seized almost a ton of cocaine in Santo Tomas but it was unclear if that was directly related to the arrests.

U.S. officials say drug cartels are increasingly using Guatemala as a route to smuggle cocaine from South America into Mexico and on to the United States.

"More than corrupting the public trust, these Guatemalan police officials have been Trojan horses for the very addiction and devastation that they were entrusted to prevent," said Karen Tandy, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The anti-narcotics agency headed by Castillo was set up in 2003 to replace a similar body that was disbanded when agents were caught stealing seized cocaine from its warehouses.

Mexico suffered a similar embarrassment when the anti-drugs chief Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was jailed in 1997 for taking bribes from the powerful Juarez Cartel.

(Additional reporting by Herbert Hernandez in Guatemala City)

Source: REUTERS

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