During the past three years, the group is estimated to have smuggled about 100 kilos of heroin and more than 800 kilos of cocaine from Colombia to the US, said General Ricardo Restrepo, the director of the Anti-Narcotic Police (ANP).
“The (US Drug Enforcement Administration) supported us in this operation, “ he said. “The arrests occurred late at night Sunday and Monday morning.”
The detainees appeared in front of the press at ANP headquarters on Wednesday, in Bogota, the Colombian capital.
The drugs were produced in the departments of Nariño and Cauca, in the southwest of the country, and were transported by land to the cities of Bogota and Cali, where they were hidden before being “sent abroad on freighters and tourist boats departing from the port of Cartagena - in the Colombian Caribbean - to the port of Miami and Key West,” said the official report.
If extradited, the eight will face drug trafficking charges in US District Court in South Florida.
The local newspaper El Universal reports that their legal status is now in the hands of the Colombian Supreme Court, which usually takes about a year to decide on extradition to the U.S.
According to Restrepo, “Nine months ago, in this same operation, we captured nine drug traffickers in the United States; seven were Colombian citizens and two were American.”
