Two Chileans and four foreigners were arrested for the robbery of one of the warehouses of the National Customs Service in the Free Trade Zone of Iquique (north). The rapid coordination between the security teams of Zofri and the Centauro Squadron of Carabineros allowed the arrest of those involved and the recovery of items valued at more than $49 million pesos (USD 51 thousand)
El Head of the Legal Advisory Department of the Iquique Customs, Mauricio Soudre Taverna, said that on Thursday afternoon an alert was received regarding the presence of strangers in the Customs warehouse, for which reason a protocol was activated with the security teams of Zona Franca, the municipality and Carabineros, which allowed the arrest of three people for the crime of robbery in an uninhabited place and another 3 people for receiving stolen goods.
The detention control hearing was held this Friday (04.11.2022) and all the participants listened to the formalization of charges by the prosecution, as well as the arguments of Customs after filing a criminal complaint against all those involved. After hearing the parties, reviewing the background that determines the existence of the crime, Judge Diego Reyes ruled that the detention of all the accused was legal.
In addition, and in response to the allegations of the Public Prosecutor's Office and Customs, the court established that the Venezuelan and the Chileans would remain in preventive detention for the crime of robbery in an uninhabited place, while the Peruvian and the Bolivians received the precautionary measure of prohibition from leaving the country.
Soudre Taverna highlighted the work of the police and the prosecution in gathering evidence which allowed us to account for the modus operandi and participation of those involved. “This is a an especially serious crime because they stole goods that were under customs authority and that belong to ongoing processes or that have already been declared as fiscal property, for which we immediately became a party and filed a broad complaint."
The criminals broke open six containers that were sealed and broke a gate and a fence. “Although items such as cell phones and high-end computers were recovered, we began a review and inventory to determine the exact damage and provide that information to the investigation process that the police will carry out,” concluded Soudre.
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