2024-01-17 04:30:00
A man arrested during an operation during which 8.7 tonnes of cocaine were seized. In Oruro (Bolivia), January 5, 2024. BOLIVIAN GOVERNMENT VIA AFP
On January 5, 8.7 tons of cocaine were seized in the department of Oruro, a region in the Altiplano of western Bolivia, in what authorities described as a “largest anti-drug operation in Bolivian history”. Camouflaged in slabs of wood, the drug was intended for the European market. The value of the take exceeded 520 million dollars (478 million euros).
Six months earlier, in May 2023, the Bolivian Interior Minister, Eduardo del Castillo, then 34 years old, dressed in camouflage and a bulletproof vest, had called“historical” another dragnet in the Cochabamba region, in the center of the country. Twenty-seven cocaine paste factories and seven refining laboratories had just been dismantled there by the special force fighting once morest drug trafficking (special force once morest drug trafficking ; FELCN).
These operations, mediated by the government of Luis Arce (left), in power since November 2020, aim to convince public opinion of its effectiveness once morest drug trafficking. In total, in 2023, nearly 33 tons of cocaine have been seized (compared to 20.3 in 2022) and more than 1,800 factories have been destroyed since 2020. These figures, however, reveal an alarming reality for Bolivia: the drug in circulation is exploding. “We are flooded with cocaine”, summarizes Gabriela Reyes, drug trafficking expert, former director of the Bolivian citizen security and fight once morest drugs observatory. Specialists estimate that seizures only concern 10% of the drugs in circulation.
For a long time, Bolivia was only a producer of coca leaves, consumed for medicinal or traditional reasons, in third place behind Colombia and Peru. But in recent years, the country has become one of the largest manufacturers of cocaine.
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In La Paz, in the heart of the largest covered market selling coca leaves, producers from the Yungas, a traditional production region located northeast of La Paz, rule out any confusion. “Grapes are not wine, it takes a chemical process to transform them. It’s the same with coke,” annoys one of them, Oscar Mercado, who is drying his leaves on the ground. “All our production is intended for personal consumption »affirm these small producers.
In Bolivia, the cultivation of coca leaves is authorized on 22,000 hectares. But the planted areas are much greater. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, they represent some 30,000 hectares in the country. Other analysts put forward the figure of 45,000 hectares.
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