Bolivia arrests alleged Uruguayan drug kingpin Sebastián Marset

Sebastián Marset, 34, an alleged Uruguayan drug trafficker and one of South America’s most wanted criminals, has been arrested in Bolivia. He is accused of trafficking tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe and of ordering the murder of a Paraguayan prosecutor who was shot dead while honeymooning on a Colombian beach in 2022.

Bolivia’s interior minister, Marco Antonio Oviedo, said on Friday that Marset was already being extradited to the United States, where he was wanted for allegedly laundering money through US banks. The arrest was described as the end of Marset’s criminal career as the self-anointed “King of the South”, a moniker he had stamped on bricks of cocaine.

It also marked a return to law enforcement cooperation between Bolivia and the US under the centrist government of Rodrigo Paz, almost 20 years after his leftwing predecessor Evo Morales expelled the US ambassador and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Bolivia

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