Joint police drive against drugs planned

Press, 13 August 1986, Page 10

Joint police drive against drugs planned

NZPA-Reuter Lima The Colombian and Peruvian police were preparing to launch a joint anti-narcotics drive aimed at eradicating all the cocaine laboratories along the Amazon jungle border dividing the two countries, Peru’s Deputy Interior Minister said yesterday. Agustin Mantilla, said the Colombian and Peruvian police would begin a combined operation today or tomorrow against laboratories along the border, which produce cocaine.

The Peruvian Air Force bombed two traffickers’ bases at the week-end and the police seized a third complex near the Amazon River. Mr Mantilla said he was going to the northern jungle city of Iquitos to oversee the Government’s drive against drug traffickers in the Amazon jungle basin. A total of 144 airstrips and 30 cocaine laboratories have been destroyed in drives against drug traffickers under the Government of Alan Garcia,

say Interior Ministry figures. Asked about neighbouring Ecuador, Mr Mantilla said Peru had not conducted joint operations with it because of a lack of information about which border areas harboured drug traffickers. Peru grows nearly half the coca leaf used to produce the world’s supply of cocaine, narcotics experts say. Bolivia is believed to harvest nearly the same amount. The leaves are converted into coca paste, which has long been flown from illegal airstrips to Colombia for processing into cocaine. But in recent years increasing amounts of the coca paste have been refined in Peru and Bolivia. Some new laboratories were set up In Peru by Colombian traffickers after the former Colombian President, Belisario Betancur, declared war on the drug trade in his nation after his Justice Minister, Dr Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, was assassinated in April, 1984.