Berliner Tageszeitung - Bolivia's attorney general arrested for alleged money laundering and drug trafficking

Mariaca was arrested on Wednesday night in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, two days after the United States revoked his visa due to his alleged links to drug trafficking.

"A criminal organization entrenched in the justice system has been dismantled," Interior Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo told a press conference.

Oviedo said that in the early hours of Thursday, four people were caught trying to remove bundles of cash from Mariaca's house aboard an ambulance.

A video released by the interior ministry showed police removing wads of cash from the ambulance's panels.

Oviedo said that the Attorney General's Office, "headed by Roger Mariaca, became a criminal organization dedicated to protecting, encouraging, and safeguarding narco-terrorism."

The US government this week alleged that Mariaca had received bribes to facilitate drug trafficking and help criminals evade justice, which Mariaca had denied.

Oviedo said that Mariaca's arrest took place with the "cooperation of the US government" as part of the "fight against terrorism."

In total, four prosecutors, six employees of the public prosecutor's office and the four people found aboard the ambulance were arrested.

The raids come as Bolivia's center-right President Rodrigo Paz, who took office in November 2025, seeks to strengthen ties with the United States after two decades of socialist rule marked by mutual enmity.

In March, Paz took Bolivia into the "Shield of the Americas," a US-led alliance of right-wing Latin American governments to combat transnational organized crime.

- 'Mariaca is my friend' -

Mariaca was appointed Attorney General by Congress in October 2024.

The Attorney General's Office stated in a press release that, given Mariaca's "definitive absence," the next most senior public prosecutor, Luis Montano Morales, would replace him on an interim basis.

Mariaca's lawyer Romel Ipamo told local media that his client would "cooperate fully" with the investigation.

During Mariaca's tenure, Bolivian police captured Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastian Marset in March, who was later deported to the United States.

Local media on Wednesday broadcast a video purporting to show Marset on the day of his arrest declaring: "Mariaca is my friend."

AFP has been unable to verify the authenticity of the video.

Police also raided the headquarters of the public prosecutor's office in the southern city of Sucre, according to footage shared by the police on social media.

Surrounded by hooded police officers, Claudia Pardo, head of communications for the prosecutor's office, denounced the raid as "illegal."

She told AFP later that she was under arrest.

The public prosecutor's offices in Santa Cruz and La Paz were also targeted in the nationwide raids, according to images broadcast by local media.

A. Madsen--BTZ