Jul.05, 2010

BOGOTA – Colombian anti-drug agents seized a replica of the World Cup trophy with 11 kilograms of pure cocaine inside it at Bogota’s international airport, the National Police reported on the weekend.

The replica of the well-known trophy was found on Saturday in one of the El Dorado airport’s storage areas along with a number of jerseys of the teams that are competing in the South Africa World Cup semifinals, the police said in a communique.

Apparently, Spain was the final destination for the cocaine hidden inside the trophy, the characteristics of which – 36 centimeters (14 inches) high and weighing 11 kilograms (24.2 pounds) when “empty” – are similar to those of the original, police said.

Meanwhile, Colombian police also managed in the past few hours to break up a drug trafficking and money-laundering network, capturing five people in an operation supported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Dutch authorities and law enforcement officials from the island of Aruba.

According to another official announcement issued by the police, two of the people arrested were captured in Colombia and the other three in Aruba, and the extraditions of all of them have been requested by the United States for crimes involving money laundering and drug trafficking.

The two people arrested at the El Dorado airport are a Colombian couple, while in Aruba a citizen of that island, another Colombian and a Venezuelan were apprehended.

All of the five people allegedly belonged to an international drug trafficking network that sent shipments to the United States via the islands of Aruba, Margarita and Curacao.