The pilot and the six Honduran passengers of a private aircraft in which thousands of containers with alleged false vaccines against coronavirus were confiscated managed to escape from a hotel in southern Mexico after being identified by authorities.
The General Prosecutor’s Office announced on Wednesday that the pilot and the six passengers who will board the private plane at the Mexican airport in Campeche to the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula managed to escape surveillance after being located in a hotel.
Authorities did not report the identities of those requested and only indicated that a migration alert had been requested from the National Institute for Migration for the seven occupants.
Amid controversy over the confiscation of thousands of alleged false doses of the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that it had not yet received the expert opinion of the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (COFEPRIS). 1,062 containers that were confiscated on March 17, an essential condition for the criminal investigation of the case.
The prosecution ruled in the letter that it had received pressure from the federal or local government to do so.
On March 17, the General Administration of Customs and the Mexican army located the bottles of the alleged Russian vaccine at the bottom of a chiller that was on a private plane preparing to travel to San Pedro Sula.
The Mexican authorities considered the vaccines to be real and protected them and launched an investigation into the confiscation. However, the Russian Fund for Direct Investment, which is the public body in charge of handling Sputnik V abroad, reported shortly afterwards that it was “a batch of fake vaccines” against the coronavirus.
Press reports indicate that the aircraft involved in the case was leased by the Honduran company Grupo Karim’s. Without providing further details on the purchase of the alleged Russian vaccines, Karim’s Group admitted the day before for the first time that it was behind the transport and denied that it was trying to smuggle drugs into Honduras.
In defense of the import of vaccines, Karim’s Group, dedicated to the manufacture of clothing, ruled out in a statement that the doses were intended for sale in the Central American country, as some press releases point out, and indicated that the vaccines would be applied free of charge to employees. members of their family.
The organization did not provide details on the number of vaccines it purchased, how it purchased them or the veracity of the medicine.
Mexico began using Sputnik V in February and received 400,000 doses of vaccine and expects another 500,000 to arrive in the next few days.
Honduras approved the emergency use of the Russian vaccine in February and this month announced the purchase of more than 4 million doses, but none have yet arrived in the Central American country.