Bolivia extradites former anti-drugs chief to face trafficking charges

Bolivia extradited its former anti-drugs director to the United States on Thursday to face cocaine trafficking charges, a milestone in the country's crackdown on narcotics smuggling.

The U.S. accuses Maximiliano Davila of involvement in drugs trafficking and money laundering before and after his time as the director of Bolivia's anti-narcotics agency under former leftist President Evo Morales.

Police chief Augusto Russo told state television on Thursday that Davila will be placed in the custody of U.S. personnel once he leaves Bolivian soil and will change planes in Lima, Peru, before being taken to the United States.

Bolivia is one of the world's top producers of coca, the raw ingredient used to make cocaine. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has noted a significant rise in shipments of the drug from South America, often to Europe.

Davila has been imprisoned on corruption charges in Bolivia since February 2022, the same month U.S. officials unsealed an indictment implicating him in cocaine smuggling and a weapons charge. The U.S. Department of State offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his conviction.

Davila "abused his position by using Bolivian law enforcement officers, armed with machine guns, to guard and transport cocaine shipments," the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said at the time.

He denies having ties to drug trafficking.

Last August, Bolivia's supreme court approved his extradition to the U.S.