Father of Bolivian Ex-Minister Surrenders to Interpol

Jorge Perez Ardaya, the father of Bolivia's former interior minister, Jorge Perez Valenzuela, turned himself in to Interpol on Tuesday, hours after Argentina reactivated an arrest warrant for him in a 2006 drug trafficking case.

Ardaya arrived at the Interpol office in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz shortly after his son announced to the media from that city that his father would turn himself in.

In addition, an Interior Ministry official told the media on Monday — after the department's chief, Carlos Romero, said on Monday that to make an arrest it was necessary for the Argentine police to reactivate the arrest warrant — that Buenos Aires had done exactly that.

The case began at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires with the arrest on Dec. 6, 2006, of 19 Bolivians, including Perez Ardaya, on grounds they were smuggling cocaine.