Sputnik
La Jornada newspaper of Saturday January 8, 2022, p. twenty
Bogota The Colombian authorities, in collaboration with the United States, captured 11 people for smuggling migrants in the town of Pasto (southwest), capital of the department of Nariño, and seized 32 assets of the criminal group, a the government reported on Friday.
The National Police, in coordination with the United States Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE, for its acronym in English) and the Office of the Attorney General, in the development of Operation Turpiales, succeeded in capture 11 members of an international criminal organization dedicated to migrant smuggling, in the town of Pasto (Nariño), the entity reported.
Last year, undocumented migrants entered Colombia through Nariño, a border department with Ecuador, on their way to the United States.
To do this, they had to leave from there to the city of Medellín and later, Necoclí, in northwest Colombia, to take a boat to the entry point of the dangerous jungle of Darién Gap, to the border of Panama.
They seize assets for $ 17 million
This unprecedented investigation made it possible to identify movable and immovable property, which were the subject of the protective measures of embargo, seizure and suspension of the power of the apparatus, which total 32, with a commercial valuation of more than ‘about $ 17 million, the text added.
Those involved in the smuggling and transfer network of undocumented migrants deceived those on the move and left them without financial resources to continue the journey, according to audios sent by the entity; allegedly, the confiscated property was purchased with this money.