Colombian authorities seized seven tons of marijuana in the department of Cauca, the largest shipment since 2017military sources reported this Sunday.
The commander of the Third Division of the Army, Brigadier General Federico Mejía, said that the cache, owned by the FARC dissidents commanded by alias ‘Iván Mordisco’, was stored in a warehouse in the Cacique hamlet, which It is part of the municipality of Silvia.
The senior military officer assured that “This shipment is so far the largest seizure made by the troops since 2017. This deals a huge blow to the illegal finances of this residual structure, whose main source of financing is the production and marketing of this narcotic”.
In military action, in charge of the Light Cavalry Group No. 8 and the Infantry Battalion No. 7, there were no captures and the seized material was left at the disposal of the corresponding authorities.
This action joins the one carried out on the 11th of this month in La Guajira where Army troops seized two tons of marijuana.
According to figures from the Ministry of Defense, in Colombia, as of September, 567 tons of cocaine and 339 tons of marijuana have been seized.
In a report presented on October 18 in Bogotá, The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicated that coca crops grew by 10% in Colombia in 2023 and reached 253,000 hectares, which is 23,000 more than in 2022, while the Cocaine production increased by 53%.
The document indicates that the area planted with coca as of December 31, 2023 was 253,000 hectares, while the production of pure cocaine hydrochloride rose to 2,664 tons, a figure that in 2022 was 1,738 tons.
EFE
