Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba, a notorious drug kingpin with a $20,000 bounty on his head, was arrested in December after authorities tracked his movements through his wife’s social media activity.
Grijalba, 43, known by his alias “Shock,” was wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for allegedly shipping massive amounts of cocaine from Costa Rica to the U.S., La Prensa of Nicaragua reported.
His arrest occurred at a London airport after a months-long investigation led by Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Department (OIJ), headed by Randall Zúñiga. Grijalba, a naturalized Costa Rican citizen, had managed to evade capture for some time until his wife’s social media posts inadvertently gave him away.
The kingpin, who seldom traveled with his wife, purchased $20,000 worth of flights to take her and their family on a European vacation. His wife, Estefania McDonald Rodriguez, shared several glamorous travel photos across her now-deleted Instagram account, showcasing their adventures from Paris to Rome.
One of Rodriguez’s posts, which featured the couple beneath the Eiffel Tower, caught the attention of DEA agents. Grijalba’s whereabouts were confirmed by these seemingly innocent vacation pictures. Zúñiga revealed that Rodriguez was known to regularly post about her travels, including sun-soaked beach holidays and visits to iconic landmarks like the Trevi Fountain.
As Grijalba and his wife toured Europe, agents had been monitoring her social media activity, which ultimately led them to his exact location. With the DEA’s international warrant in hand, the arrest was carried out.
Costa Rica, which does not extradite its citizens, made it possible for the DEA to act swiftly and capture the fugitive abroad, before he could return home.
In a twist of irony, it was the very social media platform that Grijalba’s wife used to document her travels that led to the kingpin’s downfall.
SOURCE: nypost
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