Israel Police representative for South America, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Alejandro Cogan,
participated in an international law enforcement operation resulting in the location and arrest of a fugitive Israeli criminal in Bolivia on Thursday.
The arrest was carried out in direct operational coordination with local Bolivian law enforcement agencies in the city of Santa Cruz, ending
an evasion effort that had seen the suspect live in hiding across the country for years.Video: Police Spokesperson’s Unit
According to police investigative files, the detained individual is suspected of orchestrating a major transnational drug trafficking ring in 2017. He is accused of coordinating the illicit smuggling of 5.3 kilograms of cocaine from Bolivia into Israel. The contraband was moved via a female courier acting on his behalf, who was intercepted and arrested by Israeli authorities upon her arrival in the country.
The suspect’s capture followed a protracted, methodically planned intelligence operation led by the Israel Police Intelligence Division and the national crime unit Lahav 433.
Analysts pinpointed the exact urban hideout where the fugitive had been living under an assumed profile. Immediately following the arrest in Santa Cruz, Israeli law enforcement officials commenced bilateral legal procedures with Bolivian judicial and interior authorities to advance his formal extradition to Israel, where he will stand trial on serious narcotics trafficking charges.
Lt. Col. Cogan, colloquially known within the defense establishment as “Walter,” serves as the official Israel Police liaison to South America and Latin America, assigned on behalf of Lahav 433 and the Intelligence Division. Cogan drew widespread public praise earlier this year in August, when he tracked down and personally intercepted a long-distance passenger bus in Argentina to safely locate missing Israeli mother and daughter Meli and Liel Yahalomi, bringing a tense international missing-persons ordeal to a successful close.