Accused Uruguayan drug kingpin Marset captured in Bolivia, Paraguay official says

ASUNCION/MONTEVIDEO, March 13 (Reuters) - Suspected Uruguayan drug ​kingpin Sebastian Marset, among the United States Drug Enforcement Agency’s most ‌wanted fugitives, was arrested in Bolivia, Paraguay’s top anti-narcotics official said on Friday.

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.

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Paraguay’s anti-narcotics chief Jalil Rachid said Bolivian authorities carried ​out the operation, in an interview with Paraguayan local radio. A representative for ​the anti-drug trafficking unit of the Bolivian National Police would not confirm Marset’s arrest.

Bolivia, a major cocaine producer and key transit hub for traffickers, has said it is engaged ​in a broad, multinational strategy to combat organized crime, with its centrist ​government recently restoring operational cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after a 17‑year break.

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 named in 2022 by Colombian President Gustavo Petro as being linked to the assassination of Marcelo Pecci, one ​of Paraguay’s leading anti-crime prosecutors who was shot dead on ​a ⁠Colombian beach while on 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, Lucinda Elliott in ​Montevideo and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Barcelona; editing by Cassandra Garrison and Chizu Nomiyama

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