A Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) agent was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison for selling drugs seized by police and tipping off drug traffickers about OIJ operatives, according to Judicial Branch spokesman Sergio Bonilla.
The agent, identified by the last name Castro, also worked with an accomplice, identified as Villalobos, to whom Castro distributed drugs to be sold in the streets of El Infiernillo, a neighborhood in Alajuela, northwest of San José, known for rampant poverty and crime. Villalobos was sentenced to eight years in prison.
“It's one of the most problematic neighborhoods in the country,” Bonilla said of El Infiernillo. Castro, who lived there, was an OIJ drug agent assigned to the area.
Castro and Villalobos were detained in a raid in 2005, in which cocaine was also seized, and have been in preventive prison leading up to the trial, which was held yesterday in a criminal court in Alajuela.
The raids were based on evidence the Chief Prosecutor Office's Drug Trafficking Department obtained by tapping Castro's phone. |
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