Taxi drivers arrested in swoop on Colombian cocaine trafficking ring

Round-the-clock investigations into serious drug trafficking have led police to remove another spoke in the wheel of an organised crime gang which conspired, imported and trafficked in cocaine from Colombia.

42-year-old taxi driver Mario Mifsud from Luqa, and 29-year-old Etienne Ciantar from San Gwann, who is employed as a chauffeur with a limousine service company, were charged with conspiracy to import and traffic in cocaine.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera remanded the two men into custody, and were immediately escorted to Corradino Prisons.

Mifsud and Ciantar were arrested in connection with intensive investigations led by the Police Drug Squad following the arrest last month of two women, who were intercepted at Malta International Airport carrying almost a kilogramme of cocaine.

The women, a Colombian and Spanish national spilt the beans on the alleged mastermind behind the trafficking, revealing the identity of 35 year-old Colombian national Wilder Lopez Garcia, known as 'Caco' and who resided in St. Julian's.

The women, identified as 38 year-old Olga Lucia Rativa Restrepo from Colombia and 38 year-old Spaniard Sandra Castano reportedly sent for the Police while in prison to reveal all they knew about the Colombian mastermind and his crime network in Malta.

Garcia appeared in Court yesterday, where Police Inspector Malcolm Bondin testified before Magistrate Miriam Hayman that the two women had helped the police arrest the accused.

Days after she was arraigned and kept under preventive arrest at Corradino Prisons, Olga Lucia Rativa Restrepo informed the police that she wanted to give information.

She said that on her first trip to Malta a year ago, she had met Garcia at St. George's Bay who had offered her a good sum of money to import drugs to Malta from Spain but she refused at first.

He contacted her eight months later in Spain, and this time she accepted because she needed the money. 

She roped in her friend, Sandra Castano and he arranged for the women to meet another woman in a disco in Madrid.

Mifsud and Ciantar were two of the men identified by police as they kept surveillance on Garcia's apartment in St. Julian's, while a number of other people who allegedly bought and resold cocaine were also arrested and interrogated.

Mifsud and Ciantar were also charged with money laundering, after investigations also revealed a series of unjustified money transfers, extravagant purchases, and converting property ownerships.

The prosecution, led by Inspectors Malcolm Bondin, Raymond Aquilina and Jesmond Borg called on the court to seize all financial and immovable assets in the name of both accused.