A wanted drug kingpin has been arrested after officials managed to track his wife’s social media accounts which pinpointed his location while on a luxurious European vacation. Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba aka Shock, a dual US and Costa Rica citizen, was arrested at a London airport in December after being accused of shipping cocaine from Limon, Costa Rica to the US, according to a report in the New York Post.
As per Randall Zuniga the director of Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ), Grijalba had travelled to London to ring in the New Year with his wife, Estefania McDonald Rodriguez. The kingpin, who rarely travelled with his wife, allegedly splurged $20,000 (Rs 12.27 lakh) worth of tickets to fly the 32-year-old wife and family to Europe.
During the trip, Rodriguez, who was active on social media, made several posts to a now-deleted Instagram account, documenting the holiday. In one of the photos she could be seen on a beach while in another, she sat in front of the popular Trevi Foutain in Rome.
US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, who had been tracking Grijalba after he took from Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaria Airport zeroed in on him when Rodriguez posted a picture of the couple in Paris.
Grijabla met his wife in the French capital and was planning to celebrate New Year in England. After obtaining an international warrant, the DEA went ahead with the arrest.
For a long time, the US agency had wanted to capture Grijalba but hoped to complete the operation in Europe instead of Costa Rica as the Central American country prohibits extradition of its citizens in the country.
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OIJ to not charge Grijalba
While the DEA is likely to throw serious charges into the mix against Grijalba, Costa Rica’s OIJ said it did not have any active case against him.
“For us it is also an important capture, because we had not yet been able to attribute any criminal act to him in our country, but I repeat, he has been linked in some investigations to drug trafficking in Limon,” said Costa Rica’s Attorney General Carlo Diaz.
President Rodrigo Chaves Robles and Security Minister Mario Zamora reacted sharply to the news by questioning the OIJ as to why there were no charges against Grijalba.
“It is outrageous that the Costa Rican police, I mean the Judicial Investigation Agency, the Judiciary and the Attorney General’s Office, with everyone knowing what Shock does, do not even have an open case against him, while the gringos leave the country and capture him in London. What do the gringos have that the OIJ does not have? Is it decency?” Mr Chaves said.
The OIJ director replied by saying his American counterparts were better invested and had access to more sophisticated technology to open phones