The organization, lead by a Peruvian citizen who held a a fake ID, collected the drug in the city of El Alto, in La Paz department, and then transported it to Santa Cruz, the minister stated on national television.

‘The most important thing is no longer seizing the base paste or cocaine clorhidrate, but affecting the drug trafficking clans and fundamentally their assets,’ Del Castillo said.

That was the motive of the monitoring to which Lorenzo Huanca Hilari, tasked with overland transportation in a number of vehicles to different safe houses, was being subjected, the minister added.

The leader of the organization, Pedro Pablo Quintana Zamora, has a criminal record linked to drug trafficking in both Peru and Bolivia, and is under police custody, while his wife is in house arrest, with more people linked to the case, Del Castillo stressed.

Over 40 vehicles, properties and boats in the Titicaca lake were seized during the operation, according to a report from the task force that fights drug trafficking.

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