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Spanish priest murdered at school in Peruvian Amazon

A Spanish Jesuit priest has been stabbed to death at a school he ran in an Amazon village in Peru.

Spanish priest murdered at school in Peruvian Amazon
Photo: AFP/JESUIT ORDER OF PERU

A Spanish Jesuit priest was stabbed to death at a school he ran in an Amazon village in Peru, his religious order and news reports said.

The body of Carlos Riudavets Montes, 73, was found with his hands bound and several stab wounds, RPP radio said.

The priest was found by the cook at the house where he lived, Gumercinda Diure, an employee at the school, told RPP.

She said it did not appear to be burglary because nothing was stolen.

The provincial office of the Jesuits confirmed the death.

The school provided class for children of an ethnic group called the Yamakai-Entsa.

The priest, who had lived in the Amazon region for 38 years, had been threatened by a student who was expelled from the school, Diure said.

Police are investigating the killing.

CRIME

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel’s crystal meth

Spanish police said Thursday they had seized 1,800 kilos of crystal meth that Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country's "biggest-ever seizure" of the narcotic.

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel's crystal meth

Police arrested five people during the raid in the eastern Alicante province, one of them a Mexican running the cartel’s Spanish operation, a statement said.

“This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe,” Antonio Martinez Duarte, head of the police’s drug trafficking and organised crime unit, told reporters.

“Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,” he added.

READ ALSO: What are the penalties for drug possession in Spain?

He did not give his name but indicated the suspect was responsible for receiving the narcotics in Spain then distributing them within Europe.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most violent criminal groups whose influence remains strong despite the arrest of its founder Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and his son.

Both have been extradited to and jailed in the United States.

During the operation, police also detained three Spaniards and a Romanian, seizing five cars, documents, a weapon and cash.

But police believe it was a one-off trafficking operation and that “Mexican organisations are not permanently based” in Spain, Martinez Duarte said.

“These organisations send a trusted person who carries out the operation in line with their interests” and once that is over, he goes back home, he explained.

The seized narcotics had been due to be shipped to central Europe.

Although Spain is one of the main drug gateways to Europe, seizures of synthetic narcotics are uncommon as most traffickers usually deal in cannabis and cocaine.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain’s Europe’s cocaine gateway?

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