- Title: PERU: POLICE INCINERATE EIGHT TONNES OF SEIZED DRUGS.
- Date: 23rd January 2002
- Summary: (W8) LIMA, PERU (JANUARY 23, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV: DRUGS BURN IN OVEN 0.04 2. MV/PAN: GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL ARRIVE TO SITE 0.10 3. GV/PAN: VARIOUS OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS SURVEYING DRUGS TO BE DESTROYED (2 SHOTS) 0.22 4. GV/MV/CU: CHEMISTS TESTING DRUG PURITY IN FRONT OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS (4 SHOTS) 0.40 5. MCU
- Embargoed: 7th February 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ATE VITARTE, PERU
- Country: Peru
- Reuters ID: LVA5TZ2V8Q3CKREPCWEJ7A8WX50J
- Story Text: Authorities in Peru have incinerated nearly 18,000
pounds (just over 8 metric tonnes) of seized drugs with a
street value of tens of millions of dollars.
Most of the pyre of drugs seized since December was
made up of semi-processed cocaine. The remainder was marijuana
and a derivative of poppies from which opium and heroin are
made.
The ministry said on Wednesday (January 23) that the drugs
would have fetched more than 5. 8 million U.S. dollars on the
streets of Lima, 82. 7 million U.S. dollars in the United
States, 206. 7 million U.S. dollars in Europe and 248 million
U.S. dollars in Asia.
Col. Oscar Quea, Peru's drug czar, said that the drugs
burned included cocaine paste that was seized in a combined
federal-state operative in the locality of Arequipa. All the
drugs were confiscated in the period starting December, 2001
to date.
Peru slid from being the world's largest producer of coca
leaf, the raw material for cocaine, to second-largest in 1998,
passing its dubious mantle to Colombia, now by far the world's
biggest producer of the drug.
Peru was praised as an international model in the 1990s
for its crackdown on drugs, but the government of President
Alejandro Toledo, who took office in July 2001, has already
expressed concern at a rise in poppy crops in Peru - currently
far more lucrative than coca leaf.
According to the latest figures, Peru had an estimated
86,500 acres (34,600 hectares) of coca cultivation, down from
284,170 acres (113,670 hectares) in 1995. But analysts say
state estimates are too low and coca cultivation could have
hit 173,000 acres (70,000 hectares) in 2001.
Toledo's government, which estimates that Peru's drug
trade generates more than 600 million U.S. dollars a year, has
appointed a anti-drugs "czar" and said it will shun
controversial chemical crop-spraying schemes to curb
cultivation.
It aims instead to curb the drug cultivation problem with
crop-substitution programs and by digging up plants by hand.
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