BOGOTA, March 28 (Reuters) – Colombia has arrested 11 airport employees who it says provided documentation allowing charter flights hired by Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel to move cocaine out of the country, officials said on Wednesday.
Authorities in the Andean country have long grappled with the presence of foreign criminal groups like the Sinaloa cartel, which buy Colombian cocaine from local gangs and ship it north to the United States and Europe.
The group is also using go-fast boats to move narcotics to Central America from Colombia’s Pacific coast, Jorge Nieto, director of the national police, said on Twitter. The arrests took place with help from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, he said.
The planes used in the flights were rented in Colombia and in some Central American and Caribbean countries, the police added. (Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb Editing by Leslie Adler)
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