Q24N – A Guatemalan anti-narcotics prosecutor announced that the sale of drugs not only persists in the metropolitan area, but is expanding throughout the province.
The prosecution explained that the amount of drugs being sold is due to the fact that more and more people are looking for easier income.
Deputy Minister of Interior Óscar Dávila, who deals with drug trafficking issues, explained that though they have tried to recover police control in the areas most affected by the drug industry, it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain information because the neighbors live in danger or prefer to collaborate with drug traffickers to make their own profit.
“The area of El Gallito is full of conflict,” he said. “The population is afraid to go there, and when the authorities enter, they find them quickly.”
Dávila also said they have not found more drug laboratories in the metropolitan area, but rather just the places where narcotics are distributed.
Officials recently announced there are 12 groups that keep up drug trafficking in the country and that though no one has total control and there is rivalry between the groups, this is “not a factor to increase the seizure of drugs.”
“After the capture of the main narcotraffickers, we know that there are already those who want to take that power, but no one has succeeded in that.”
“They are names I can not reveal,” Davila said, “but they are people who have tried to gain power by the captures of Jairo Orellana and the Phantom, and soon they will fail.”
The official added that the drug seizures this year only compare with those made in 2011 and said that “of all the drug, 65 percent enter the country through the Pacific coast by means of boat.”
Expert on security issues at the Center for National Economic Research Francisco Quezada explained that the selling of drugs has spread throughout the province because leaders of the groups have changed to cash payment for drugs.
This article originally appeared on Panampost.com
