Drug traffickers in Argentina have been caught attempting a new method of smuggling cocaine into Europe by “impregnating” rice with the drug, then packaging it into World Food Project sacks.
Customs officers in Rosario – a key transit city for Argentine and Colombian drugs gangs – found 30kgs of cocaine stashed inside the 50-kilo rice sacks in a warehouse, ready to be shipped to Africa via Brazil and then smuggled into Europe.
Drug traffickers in Argentina have been caught attempting a new method of smuggling cocaine into Europe by “impregnating” rice with the drug, then packaging it into World Food Project sacks.
Customs officers in Rosario – a key transit city for Argentine and Colombian drugs gangs – found 30kgs of cocaine stashed inside the 50-kilo rice sacks in a warehouse, ready to be shipped to Africa via Brazil and then smuggled into Europe.
The rice had been soaked in water mixed with cocaine, according to Guillermo Gonzalez, chief of narcotic investigations for Argentina's customs agency. When the water evaporated, the rice was left invisibly "impregnated" with the drug.
"It's a new method," said Guillermo Gonzalez, chief of narcotic investigations for Argentina's customs agency. "This is the first time we've seen technology this sophisticated."
The traffickers probably planned to grind the grains into fine powder and sell it as cocaine, which would have had a street value of $1 million (£650,000).
"Pure cocaine is too strong to be ingested without being cut with something. It may have been their plan to cut this shipment with the same rice that was used to carry it," Mr Gonzalez said.
Thirteen suspects have been arrested, including Argentine former civil servant Guillermo Adolfo Heisinger, 55, and his Colombian hairdresser boyfriend, Jorge Jacome López, 33.
Another suspect is Gabriel Zilli, a doctor specialising in assisting patients with terminal cancer, who was found with 4kgs of cocaine stashed in his house. Argentine press described his residence as the “mega kitchen” where the rice and cocaine were “cooked”.He has denied all charges, and insisted the chemicals in his home were simply for his work with terminally-ill patients.
Police believe the discovery was a test run for a large-scale operation, which would see the cargo shipped to Guinea-Bissau, a tiny former Portuguese colony dubbed by crime experts as Africa's first "narco-state".
It would then be trafficked up into Europe, in what Argentine police say is a complex operation orchestrated by two Colombian brothers.
Argentine authorities are working to dismantle the trafficking network in Rosario, 180 miles north of Buenos Aires on the Parana River, which runs from Paraguay to the Argentine capital.
Experts believe the drug enters Argentina by truck or plane from Andean cocaine-producing countries to the north, and passes through the city on the way to the Atlantic shipping routes.
The scheme was discovered on September 17, when sniffer dogs detected cocaine in the cargo. It was kept secret for a week while security agents hunted for more suspects.
Police are now searching for the Colombian brothers who are believed to be the masterminds of the gang. Erman and Willians Triana Peña, who have strong links to Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel, are thought to be hiding out in Paraguay. They are sought alongside a Colombian former policeman, Carlos Olmedo Silva Cárdenas.
Colombian cartels stretched their tentacles into Argentina in the early 2000s.
In January this year one of their main envoys, Alejandro Gracia Alvarez, or "Gato Seco" – Dry Cat – was arrested in Colombia, accused of facilitating the entry of Colombian gangs into Argentina and laundering their money through front companies. Over the years, Gato Seco allegedly handled the Argentine financial operations of at least a dozen major Colombian crime bosses, and confessed to laundering $900m for one cartel alone.
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