Spain refuses to extradite Pipo Chavarría to United States for drug trafficking
A Spanish court rejected the extradition request from Washington because it determined that the charges presented by the US lack specificity.
Spain refuses to extradite Pipo Chavarría to United States for drug trafficking
A Madrid court denied Washington's request for Wilmer Chavarría, alias Pipo, to be tried in United States territory. The Ecuadorian, to whom leadership of the criminal organisation Los Lobos is attributed, will remain in Spain whilst another extradition proceeding requested by Quito is resolved.
North American authorities identified him as coordinator of a structure that moved large consignments of cocaine from Ecuadorian territory towards destinations in South America and Central America, with the final destination being the United States. The accusation pointed to operations that would have continued until 2022 and included an alleged shipment of five kilograms of drugs destined for California.
Nevertheless, the Spanish magistracy determined that the charges are vague. According to the ruling, the evidence presented is insufficient to support either an investigation or a deprivation of liberty, since it does not specify when the alleged importations occurred or provide data that would allow them to be placed within the stated period.
The statement of a DEA agent that supports the case refers to events in 2023, which exceeds the timeframe indicated in the petition. This makes it difficult, in the court's view, to analyse whether the acts reported constitute a crime in both jurisdictions and to respect the principle of speciality.
In addition to the litigation with the United States, Chavarría is under investigation in his country for the murder of journalist and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, which occurred at the end of an electoral rally in the Ecuadorian capital in 2023. In Spain he has already been questioned by a representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Andean nation regarding this matter.
There is also an order for him to be returned to Ecuador so that he may serve a sentence of sixteen years for three deaths recorded on 3 July 2010, in the context of a bank branch robbery in which they took 38,000 dollars.
Source: Google News EC — Crime