Apart from wanting to bribe the military, people with firearms tried to recover the cargo by force.
LOADS.- Five people are prosecuted for csmuggling rings in the province of Carchi, in the north of Ecuador, who received alternative measures to preventive detention, after a case that involved attempted bribery of the military and an attack with firearms while transferring the detained cargo.
The details of what happened were presented by the Prosecutor’s Office, who reported that the judge on duty of the Criminal Judicial Unit based in Tulcán, capital of Carchez, issued a ban on leaving the country and periodic presentations before the competent authority for Juan Andrés AM, Richard Alexander DC, Jefferson Alexander CA, Richard Mauricio CA and Jerson Marzoliny DC, of Ecuadorian nationality, for alleged smuggling.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, police personnel went to the facilities of the Mayor Galo Molina military barracks, 31st Andes Infantry Brigadewhere he made contact with members of the Armed Forces, who would have intercepted two trucks, around 10:40 p.m. on March 15, 2024, in the Cartagena sector, near the El Carmelo parish (close to the border with Colombia).
“The uniformed officers ordered the trucks to stop, to which the drivers ignored them, trying to flee. When they finally stopped the vehicles, the uniformed officers saw that tThey shipped alcoholic beverages and mass consumption products of Colombian, Mexican and Indonesian origin – without the corresponding documentation -, so the occupants and vehicles were taken to the military barracks,” they detailed.
They added that the occupants of the vehicles had tried to bribe the uniformed officers to release the merchandise found, whose final destination, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, was the Juncal sector, on the border between the provinces of Carchi and Imbabura.
“At the Guagua Negro sector, the military personnel guarding the trucks and their occupants were intercepted with firearms, by vehicles that They were trying to recover the seized cargo“, they said.
In the registry, officials from the National Customs Service of Ecuador (Senae) showed that the cargo carried by each truck had a value of approximately $30,000 and $20,000, respectively.
“Due to these events, the Prosecutor’s Office prosecuted the occupants of the vehicles in two hearings, one for each detained truck. As it is a crime whose penalty is less than five years in prison, both cases will be processed by direct procedure, which will take place on April 1, 2024 (one in the morning and the other in the afternoon). While the seized merchandise was kept in the warehouses of Senae, in the city of Tulcán,” they detailed.
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