Bolivia arrests accused drug kingpin Marset, transfers him to US

LA PAZ/ASUNCION March 13 (Reuters) – Suspected Uruguayan drug kingpin Sebastian Marset, among the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s most wanted fugitives, was arrested in Bolivia, officials of the South American country said on Friday.   

Bolivian Interior Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo told a press conference that Marset, 34, was then flown to the U.S. and that no one was killed or injured during the operation.

The U.S. DEA, with which Bolivia recently resumed cooperation, did not participate in the arrest, Oviedo said, but was involved in Marset’s transfer to the U.S.

MARSET INDICTED IN U.S. ON MONEY LAUNDERING

Marset, accused of leading the First Uruguayan Cartel, is wanted in Paraguay and Bolivia on organized crime charges related to cocaine trafficking between South American countries and Europe. He was indicted in the U.S. on money laundering charges, according to the U.S. State Department.

Paraguay’s top anti-narcotics official was the first to confirm the arrest earlier on Friday.

Bolivia’s centrist government said last month it restored operational cooperation with the DEA after a 17‑year break, part of what it says is a broader multinational push against organized crime. 

President Rodrigo Paz hailed Marset’s arrest as a regional milestone.

“One of the drug traffickers and criminals considered among the four biggest on the continent has fallen,” Paz said during the press conference in La Paz.

“The capture of Mr. Marset marks a turning point in the fight against organized crime, and it also reaffirms the government’s determination to confront international and domestic mafias,” he added.

Paz was among the Latin American leaders who met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday in Florida to form a military coalition to tackle drug cartels. 

Marset in 2021 was briefly detained in Dubai while traveling on a forged Paraguayan passport. Within days, Uruguayan authorities issued him a new passport that allowed him to leave the United Arab Emirates legally, prompting a scandal that later led to the resignations of several senior Uruguayan officials.

Marset was linked in 2022 by Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the assassination of Marcelo Pecci, one of Paraguay’s leading anti-crime prosecutors, who was shot dead on a Colombian beach while on his honeymoon. Marset has not been charged in that case.

Marset’s brother, Diego Nicolas Marset, was arrested in Brazil in 2023 as one of South America’s most wanted fugitives by Interpol, in a police operation that involved agencies from Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

(Reporting by Daniela Desantis in Asuncion, Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo, Daniel Ramos in La Paz and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Barcelona; editing by Cassandra Garrison, Chizu Nomiyama, Rod Nickel)