Attorney General seeks action on criminal assets

The acting Attorney General  Javier Caravallo has called on the Legislature to debate the project that creates the jurisdiction for the “extinction of domain” [seizure of assets] as an effective tool against organized crime” and for the Executive to provide more resources to expand the saturated judicial morgue.

“If there is something that characterizes organized crime, it is the desire to accumulate resources with which they become stronger and stronger. For this reason, to the extent that the country can have a domain forfeiture law that allows us to attack that fortress, we will be able to face organized crime in a better way ”.

Caraballo  called on the National Assembly as soon as ordinary sessions begin, to discuss the postponed bill 625 “accurately and objectively.”

The initiative, presented by the Minister of Public Security, Juan Pino, last April rests in the Government Commission of the AN, chaired by deputy Víctor Castillo. He has said that there is an intention to advance the project but that they have not had enough time because of issues such as electoral reforms.

For the security authorities, this would be a tool that would weaken the financial muscle of organized crime, whose local gangs, have been the protagonists of the latest crimes in the country.

According to Caraballo, the Ancón judicial morgue, with a capacity for 45 bodies, was already overrun due to bloody events that left at least 12 dead.

For 2022 the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences received a budget of $48.1 million, below what they had requested. This forced the suspension of plans to build a new judicial morgue.

Tons of cocaine
While the Public Ministry is struggling due to a lack of space and budget to handle the bodies left by organized crime in the streets, drug trafficking is not slowing down.

On Saturday,  the National Air and Naval  Service seized 3.499 packages of drugs found in containers on a ship in transit from Chile to the Netherlands. In total there were 3.5 tons, with which the country breaks the annual record of drug seizures.

For all of 2020, a total of 84.8 tons of drugs were seized. 

Most of the drug is destined for the United States, the world’s leading cocaine consumer. And now, according to the authorities, much of this drug would be reaching Europe.

This year, the country’s anti-drug fight received a boost when the Regional Center for Naval Air Operations (Croan) was inaugurated on February 11, with the support of the USA.