Four people were detained in Gran Concepción after the Antinarcotics Brigade of the Policía de Investigaciones (PDI), Chile’s investigative police, intercepted a vehicle and carried out three searches.[1] The four are two men, aged 40 and 29, and two women, aged 34 and 29.[1] Three have criminal records and had previously been convicted of drug trafficking, and one was serving a supervised-release sentence when the operation took place.[1] The brigade said they belonged to a criminal structure linked to drug trafficking that was moving illicit substances into the Biobío region from other parts of the country.[2]
Subprefect Germán De la Hera, the brigade’s acting chief, said they were travelling to San Pedro de la Paz in a vehicle carrying 17 kilograms of cocaine base and 1.5 kilograms of ketamine.[1] Officers then executed three entry-and-search warrants in San Pedro de la Paz, Coronel and Concepción, seizing a further 1.4 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride and cannabis plants.[1] In one of the properties they found an indoor grow with 12 cannabis plants.[1] The operation also took 500 rounds of .40-calibre and 9 mm ammunition.[1] Officers also seized a Bersa firearm whose serial number had been erased, along with mobile phones and cash.[1] Mayor Juan Pablo Spoerer of San Pedro de la Paz said the main finds were concentrated there and that the property had every characteristic of what is known as a casa narco, a house used for dealing drugs.[1]
Prosecutor Carla Hernández said the Public Prosecutor’s Office will ask that the accused be held in preventive detention.[1] All four are to be formally charged under Law 20.000, Chile’s drug law, and under the firearms and ammunition law.[1] For drug trafficking they face a minimum sentence of three years and one day.[1]
