Bolivia's top court says its former anti-drug chief can be extradited to the US on drug charges

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Bolivia's highest court on Wednesday approved the extradition to the United States of a former anti-narcotics chief on charges of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S., a rare ruling against a top security official in the Andean nation whose relations with Washington have been strained for decades.

The decision, which cannot be appealed, caps the rapid downfall of Maximiliano Dávila, 59, Bolivia's top drug cop in 2019 under former leftist President Evo Morales, the first Indigenous president of Bolivia who became a global anti-imperialist icon for kicking out the U.S. ambassador and Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008.

A former police colonel, Dávila was indicted in 2022 in New York on federal charges of conspiring to import cocaine to the U.S. and possessing machine guns. The indictment accused Dávila of leveraging his position to provide top-level protection to cargo planes transporting cocaine through third countries for distribution in the U.S.

The Justice and State Departments also offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his conviction. Dávila official has denied the charges.

Bolivia’s Supreme Court of Justice announced it was granting a formal U.S. request for Dávila to be extradited on drug conspiracy charges. The U.S. State Department and Department of Justice did not publicly comment on the announcement.

“After reviewing the documentation and the corresponding evidence, it has been determined to proceed immediately with Dávila’s extradition,” said Marco Jaimes, the court's president.

Inside Bolivia, Dávila is facing money laundering charges. Bolivian authorities arrested him in 2022 as he was allegedly fleeing to Argentina, hauling him to jail in the capital of La Paz where he now remains.

Dávila led the anti-narcotics agency in Bolivia for the final nine months of Morales’ 14-year presidency, which ended abruptly in November 2019. The powerful former coca farmer resigned as street protests erupted after the announcement that he had won re-election to an unprecedented fourth term.

The interim government of Jeanine Áñez, which took power following Morales' ouster, sacked Dávila.

But he returned in 2020 under the government of President Luis Arce, Morales' former economy minister. Dávila served for a year as police commander in Bolivia's central region of Cochabamba, a key hub of the country's coca-leaf production.

An extradition treaty between Bolivia and the U.S. has been in force since 1995, despite decades of uneasy relations marked by America’s “war on drugs” and Morales' fierce opposition as a young union leader to U.S. forcible coca eradication policies.

After Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador in 2008, the Bush administration did the same and nothing has changed since.

This is the second time in Bolivian history that authorities have approved the extradition to the U.S. of a senior security officer, said Saul Lara, an opposition lawmaker and ex-foreign minister.

The first was in 1995, when Col. Faustino Rico Toro, a former interior minister and anti-drug chief close to brutal Bolivian dictator Luis Garcia Meza, was handed over to U.S. authorities in Miami on cocaine trafficking charges.

From Bolivia, lawyers for Dávila vowed to challenge the extradition.

“This is a serious violation of human rights,” said defense attorney Manolo Rojas, promising that he would raise the case with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an organ of the Organization of American States, of which the U.S. is a founding member.

Bolivia's court decision comes as a fierce rivalry escalates between current President Arce and former President Morales, tearing apart the ruling Movement Toward Socialism party ahead of 2025 elections.

Although Morales insists he has nothing to do with Dávila, Arce's supporters have sought to portray Wednesday's ruling against his former minister as a blow to the political career of the ex-president who seeks to run in the presidential elections next year despite a court ban.

“In the United States, the former anti-drug czar will surely be able to reveal who his accomplices are. Perhaps it is Evo,” said Senator Virginia Velasco, referring to Morales without elaborating.