Quito, March 19 (Prensa Latina) The Ecuadorian National Police seized 2.9 tons of cocaine in the port city of Guayaquil, one of the most besieged in the country today by drug trafficking.
The operation, called Victoria 17, made it possible to intercept a heavy-duty truck on the Perimeter Highway that was carrying the drug hidden in a container while it was moving to the port.
According to the details offered by Colonel Víctor Zarate, police commander of Zone 8, Belgium was the final destination of the drug, whose starting point was the province of Manabí.
The seized drug was stored in rectangular packages kept in 75 jute bags that were camouflaged among export wood.
As a result of the action, only one person was apprehended, who has a criminal record, while other citizens who were escorting the truck in two light vehicles managed to escape.
In another operation, in the same city, police officers arrested two men who were transporting 126 brick-type packages with cocaine from Colombia, with the intention of storing it in warehouses near the ports, under the blind hook modality, for later transfer to Central America and the United States, the main drug consumer in the world.
The seizure is part of the reinforced anti-narcotics operations in Guayaquil, whose port is one of the main points used for the trafficking of hallucinogenic substances, especially cocaine, to Europe.
Until last February, the authorities reported 35 tons of controlled substances, mostly cocaine, seized nationwide since the beginning of this year.
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