Panama Police to Investigate Executions
(http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2008/) The Panamanian Police will create a special team to investigate increase of executions in mafia style that the country has experienced in the last three months, authorities announced.
Auxiliary Attorney Luis Martinez told reporters the police elite group will be shaped by experts of the Judicial Investigation Department, the Homicide Division and the Ministry of Justice.
The police keeps records of around 20 murders from June to the present and most corpses were found in isolated places, shot in their heads, tied up and with signs of torture.
Government and Justice Minister Daniel Delgado Diamante holds that there is direct relation between those executions and seizure by the police of huge amounts of drugs.
In just one operation on August 5, police forces seized 2,372 pounds of cocaine and arrested six Mexicans and two Colombians, supposed members of Golfo's cartel, from the northern country.
Panama is in the route for illegal drug traffic to the United States, the world largest market, and according to official reports, over 26 tons of cocaine had been seized until July
