San Juan – A group of 17 people with ties to reputed Puerto Rican drug kingpin Jose David Figueroa Agosto, alias "Junior Capsula," were arrested Monday by local and federal authorities.
Puerto Rico's chief of police, Jose Figueroa Sancha, said that among those arrested was Jose's brother Jorge Luis Figueroa Agosto, who was nabbed on a cruise ship docked in St. Thomas.
Figueroa Sancha added that seized in the raid were millions of dollars in properties that were supposedly purchased with the proceeds of cocaine sales.
"This is the biggest operation carried out this year against a crime organization," Figueroa Sancha said.
Junior Capsula, dubbed "the Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean," was taken into custody on July 17 in San Juan after 11 years on the lam.
He had become the most-wanted fugitive in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic for crimes of homicide and drug trafficking.
A U.S. federal arrest warrant was out for Figueroa Agosto for evading justice by escaping from a Puerto Rican jail in 1999.
His escape came after he had served four years of a 209-year sentence imposed by the court after being found guilty of homicide and other charges.
Junior Capsula was said to run a drug ring with operations in Colombia and Venezuela that transported drugs to the Dominican Republic, from where it was taken in speedboats to Puerto Rico.
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