LA PAZ, Bolivia — Arturo Murillo, the former Bolivian interior minister, was arrested Thursday at an airport after being deported from the United States to face multiple criminal charges, Bolivian authorities said.
Murillo arrived on a flight that landed in the eastern province of Santa Cruz and was immediately taken into custody by Bolivian officials after U.S. authorities accompanying him handed him over, according to prosecutors. He was later flown to the capital, La Paz, where prosecutors said they planned to transfer him to face the charges lodged against him.
Murillo faces a broad array of accusations in Bolivia, including crimes against humanity and homicide over the 2019 crackdown on anti-government protesters, as well as charges of money laundering, abuse of authority, aggravated theft and influence-peddling related to the purchase of overpriced tear gas. Prosecutors say he was tried and sentenced in absentia in two of the cases among the many pending against him.
His deportation from the United States came late Wednesday after his release from a U.S. prison in June. Murillo served about four years in a money laundering case in the United States in which he was accused of accepting $532,000 in bribes to help a Florida company secure a contract to supply tear gas to the Bolivian government.
U.S. officials said Murillo was expelled from the Miami area and flown to Bolivia under deportation protocols. Upon arrival in Santa Cruz, U.S. authorities turned him over to Bolivian counterparts, who carried out the arrest at the airport and arranged his transfer to La Paz.
Bolivian prosecutors say the charges tied to the 2019 protests relate to orders that led to a deadly crackdown on demonstrators. Those events followed a period of intense political unrest in Bolivia; Murillo, who served as interior minister during a turbulent transition, has been a central figure in several investigations into security operations and procurement practices from that period.
In the U.S. case that led to his imprisonment, federal prosecutors charged Murillo with taking payments in exchange for steering a government contract for tear gas to a private company, an allegation he denied at the time. After serving his sentence, U.S. authorities moved to deport him to Bolivia, where a raft of criminal investigations was already pending.
Bolivian judicial authorities have not released a detailed schedule for pretrial procedures or when he will appear before a court in La Paz. It was not immediately clear whether Murillo will contest the extradition process or seek legal remedies to challenge his detention. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The arrest is likely to intensify scrutiny of accountability for security forces and procurement practices during the 2019 unrest. Prosecutors in Bolivia will now proceed with their investigations and the cases that have been built against Murillo, who remains a polarizing figure in Bolivian politics and law enforcement oversight.
Authorities have said they will provide further updates as they move forward with transfers and charges, but offered no immediate timetable for court appearances or detention arrangements. International and domestic observers have closely followed Murillo’s legal trajectory since his U.S. conviction and subsequent deportation.
(Additional reporting from U.S. federal case records and Bolivian prosecutors’ statements.)