Gordo Puro, one of the actors in the 2015 Costa Rican film Presos (Imprisoned), is among those arrested as suspects on local drug trafficking in several communities in western Alajuela.
According to the information released by the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ), Marco Aurelio Zamora Barquero, 43, is part of a narco cell run by a soccer player who until four months ago played with the Municipal de Grecia.
Zamora was in jail for almost 15 years for aggravated robbery and drug dealing and completed his sentence in 2013. In a 2014 interview with Viva (La Nacion), he said he did not want to go back to prison and that “delinquir’ (committing a crime) as the “worst business”.
During the filming of “Presos”, in which he acted as himself, Gordo Puro had to return to the La Reforma prison, where several prisoners greeted him and loaded him with messages and slips of paper for his relatives and friends on the outside.
“You mature and you want to protect the family, I do not want to go back, I’m very well behaved; I got this part in the movie and I’m very happy,” Zamora said at the time.
Both Zamora and the soccer player, identified as Alexander Rodríguez Araya, and 11 others were arrested Thursday in Grecia after 14 raids were carried out by the OIJ in Grecia, Atenas, and Sarchí.
According to the authorities, Rodríguez and his brother led the group, while other members of the group were in charge of various functions such as transportation, distribution, and sale of marijuana, cocaine and crack in parks, bars and public activities in different Alajuelan communities.
The OIJ announced on Thursday that Rodriguez left soccer to dedicate himself to lead the organization, after the death of the previous leader, Gerardo Castellón Vásquez, who was shot dead in August of last year in León XIII, in Tibás.
Following the raids, Walter Espinoza, director of the OIJ, said the cell was part of the organization of Erwin Guido Toruño, aka El Gringo, who was killed in December. The director explained that Rodriguez had “the blessing” from El Gringo, after the Castellón murder.
The Rodriguez cell is also linked to kidnapping, a series of shootings and threats in Alajuela.
The OIJ investigation took 12 months following on leads by confidential informants. Espinoza added that although “it is difficult to estimate, it is believed that they earned about ¢3 million per week”.
The prosecutor’s office is seeking six months preventive detention for Zamora, Rodriguez and the other 11 suspects. During the raids, agents confiscated some ¢12 million colones in cash, an AK-7, a revolver, a shotgun, ammo, cellular phones, notebooks for debt collection and an unspecified amount of crack, cocaine, marijuana, and amphetamines.
Source (in Spanish): La Nacion
