Bolivia’s attorney general, Roger Mariaca, was arrested with Santa Cruz departmental prosecutor Alberto Zeballos at Viru Viru International Airport on Wednesday night, 30 September.
Mariaca was detained on suspicion of drug trafficking and money laundering. Interior Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo said he was among 14 people arrested in an operation aimed at an alleged criminal ring inside Bolivia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The arrests followed US Department of State visa restrictions imposed on Mariaca days earlier. Washington accused him of taking bribes to facilitate drug trafficking and help violent criminals evade justice.
Mariaca had rejected the US allegations on 28 September, calling the decision an act of “interference” and “political pressure” in response to his investigations.
Police also raided the prosecutor’s offices in Sucre on 30 September. The Prosecutor’s Office described Mariaca’s arrest as a kidnapping and illegal detention.
Claudia Pardo, the office’s head of communications, said during the raid: ‘We denounce before the entire Bolivian population this intervention that is being carried out illegally.’
Anti-drug prosecutor Miguel Gonzales said late Wednesday that police had detained Mariaca without a warrant.
Authorities filed formal complaints against Mariaca under Article 132 of the Penal Code, which applies to organised crime, and Law 1008, which regulates the distribution of controlled substances.
Police seized roughly $300,000 in cash from Mariaca’s home in Santa Cruz. Oviedo alleged that an ambulance leaving the home early Thursday carried bundles containing 3.53 million bolivianos (about $294,000) and an additional $10,000.
The other detainees included two prosecutors who had also been targeted by the US visa restrictions. The Bolivian government said it had dismantled a “criminal organization” that had “infiltrated” the judicial system.
Mariaca was appointed to a six-year term in 2024 under Bolivia’s previous socialist government. He had previously been chief prosecutor in Santa Cruz, where suspected Uruguayan drug kingpin Sebastián Marset was detained and swiftly released in 2023.
Marset was ultimately captured in Bolivia in March and sent to the US to face money laundering charges.
On Friday, a Bolivian court rejected Mariaca’s petition for release under Article 125 of the constitution, which allows for an ‘Accion de Libertad’ challenging elements of prosecution and confinement.
President Rodrigo Paz is deepening security cooperation with Washington. The case now puts allegations of trafficking links inside the country’s Prosecutor’s Office before Bolivia’s own legal system.
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