A most wanted drug kingpin was arrested in the UK after the authorities got his location from an unexpected source, his wife’s Instagram posts. Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba was arrested at London Airport after police tracked his wife’s Instagram account and found from the photos posted there that they were vacationing in Europe.
Grijalba is a Nicaraguan native who also holds Costa Rican nationality. Luis Manuel Picado Grijalba is accused of shipping cocaine from Limón in Costa Rica to the US and is wanted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He was nabbed by National Crime Agency officers on December 29 on an international warrant.
As Costa Rica generally does not honour deportation requests made by the USA, Drug ringleaders from the country can be caught only if they travel abroad. However, Grijalba’s glamourous wife Estefania McDonald Rodriguez made it easy for the authorities, as she posted several photographs of the couple’s vacation in Europe. Reportedly, Luis Grijalba travelled to London with his wife Estefania McDonald Rodriguez to celebrate the new year, unaware that the US agents were tracking her social media accounts.
Rodriguez posted photographs of herself with her husband in front of the Eifel Towel. In another photo after that, they were seen near the London Bridge. The Instagram account has been deleted now.
Estefania McDonald Rodriguez generally travels a lot and posts photographs, but her cautious husband does not accompany her. But this time they travelled together, and his wife made the mistake of revealing that she was with her husband in the European locations. As a result, DEA tracked them and got Luis arrested with the cooperation of NCA after an arrest warrant was issued.
Grijabla was presented in a court in the UK, and he has contested extradition to the USA. Officials of Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Agency said that they have been informed about the arrest, adding that there is no case against the Drug dealer in the country.
Randall Zúñiga, an official of Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Agency, said, “His wife travelled out of the country a lot and posted about it on social media. They went to Colombia and Europe a lot. They had recorded several trips. She uploaded a lot of photos. The DEA had been following Grijalba for several months and was waiting for the international arrest warrant to be ready.”
