Paraguay's National Anti-Drug Secretariat reported that Uruguayan Sebastian Marset, one of the leading drug traffickers of the First Uruguayan Cartel (PCU), was linked to a cocaine trafficking organization operating in Paraguay. The network was dismantled in the operation called A Ultranza, which involved 86 raids.
The drug trafficking group was defined as “high-level” by the Secretariat and has as its members large Uruguayan businessmen. “Unlike other factions or drug cartels, the members of the aforementioned association consider themselves to be a criminal elite,” they mentioned from the anti-drug agency.
This criminal organization became notorious in Uruguay after several allegations of intimidation of prosecutors and police officers investigating them.
Marset has a criminal record that includes three crimes of illegal drug trafficking, drug possession and homicide, Paraguayan media outlet Última Hora reported. He is currently required by the Paraguayan Justice, according to the weekly Búsqueda. In addition, there are indications that the actions of the First Uruguayan Cartel would like to extend to Paraguay.
To carry out the operation, 86 raids, seven constitutions and two procedures were carried out on public roads, which resulted in ten people in detention. In addition, 83 buildings, 28 vehicles, 10 airplanes, one helicopter, 30 tractor trucks, 12 carts, 41 tractors, 48 motorcycles, seven boats, nine agricultural machinery and 5,002 livestock were seized.
It collaborated with the Paraguayan Police, the European Union Agency for Police Cooperation (Europol), the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the General Directorate for the Suppression of Illicit Drug Trafficking.
Politicians such as former deputy Juan Carlos Ozorio, deputy Erico Galeano, former Minister of the National Emergency Secretariat Joaquín Roa, businessman Alberto Koube and the Insfrán clan are involved in the investigation.
Who is Sebastian Marset?
The 30-year-old Uruguayan has a criminal record for drug possession in 2013, for three crimes of illicit drug trafficking also in 2013 (two of them in the form of organization and as co-author) and one for homicide in 2018.
He was also the recipient of 450 kilos of marijuana that was transported by the criminal “Papacho”, better known as Domingo Viveros Cartes, uncle of former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes. The latter was arrested for this crime that occurred on July 29, 2012.
After his arrest in Uruguay in 2013, Marset confessed his link to Papacho and to the marijuana that had been smuggled at the time.
He served his sentence in Uruguay until he regained his freedom in 2018. From then on, he left his country and frequented several Latin American countries, most notably Paraguay and Bolivia, where it is believed that he generated links with criminal organizations.
Despite being a drug trafficking leader, Marset is also a businessman who, in different areas, rubbed shoulders with the political class. For example, in Paraguay he played football for the Deportivo Capiata team, where Deputy Erico Galeano was president.
Later, he opened a company called Total Cars with his wife, in Asunción, whose main objective was to be able to launder money because of his criminal activity. In 2019, she was part of advertising campaigns in several international press outlets. Interestingly, he went on to work as a music producer and coordinated more than 400 events and concerts that same year.
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