Chilean authorities have launched a special security operation to transfer nine of the country’s most dangerous prisoners to the high-security La Laguna prison in Talca. Among them is Albanian Viktor Gjini, convicted in Chile for international drug trafficking.
The operation, codenamed “Cancerbero”, was carried out by the Chilean gendarmerie and aimed to remove important figures from criminal organizations from Santiago’s prisons and concentrate them in a special security structure.
Gjini, 58, is one of the names on the list of those transferred. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for trafficking about 98 kilograms of cocaine, in a case that Chilean authorities have linked to an attempt to create a new cocaine trafficking corridor from South America to Europe.
According to investigations conducted in Chile, Gjini had traveled to the country with the intention of organizing the transport of drugs through Chilean ports. The destination of the shipment was planned to be Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.
As part of the investigation, an undercover Chilean Navy agent was used to document contacts with the group. According to the court ruling, Gjini had offered the agent $20,000 to help conceal about 100 kilograms of cocaine in a container that was to be transported from Chile to Europe.
The Viña del Mar Criminal Court sentenced him to 10 years in prison, a decision that was later upheld on appeal.
His case has been mentioned by Chilean media as part of the efforts of Albanian criminal groups to create new cocaine trafficking routes to Europe.
He had been in prison for a long time and yesterday’s action aimed to transfer him and eight other prisoners to La Laguna prison in Talca, a facility designed to isolate the leaders and most dangerous figures of organized crime in Chile.
Who is Viktor Gjini?
According to the investigation, Gjini arrived in Chile using a Dutch passport and checked into a hotel in Las Condes, where he coordinated meetings to carry out the shipment of around 200 kilograms of cocaine to Europe.
The prosecution described him as a ‘highly educated’ person, who spoke four languages and had detailed knowledge of exports, ports and sea routes.
“We are talking about a person with high training and skills. He is not an ordinary, low-level trafficker. On the contrary, he speaks four languages, knows the main products that our country exports, knows the routes and names of the ships. And the first thing he says is: ‘I want to go to Valparaíso to see how the port works,'” said prosecutor Carlos Ribas from the SAC-ECOH team in Valparaíso.
Its objective was to create a new trafficking route from Chile to Europe using shipping containers. The operation was infiltrated by an undercover Navy agent and monitored by the Carabinieri.