Manta, MANABI
Some 3.9 tons of drugs were seized on December 30 in a house located in the El Prado citadel in the Montecristi canton. That was the largest shipment of narcotics seized in a single place in Manabí the previous year.
With this seizure, which also allowed the apprehension of a man with a history of drug trafficking and murder, in Manabí more than 18 tons of drugs were seized in all of 2022.
Added to this load, the previous year in Ecuador 201 tons of narcotics were seized, according to Pablo Ramírez, head of Anti-Narcotics of the National Police.
The investigations that culminated in this important seizure began six months ago, according to Óscar Quintana, of the Anti-Narcotics Unit of the National Police in Manabí.
The drug was in 3,383 packages that were found inside 88 jute sacks. It is estimated that the drug was intended to be sent by sea to a nation in the center or north of the continent.
They seize more than three tons of drugs in Manabí
Ramírez pointed out that during 2022, 12,760 people were arrested for the crime of international drug trafficking and micro-trafficking, as well as 1,008 firearms were confiscated.
The previous year, 90 tons of processing chemicals were seized, as well as $7.8 million.
Ramírez said that the seizure of drugs in the country’s ports increased, because while in 2021 54 tons were seized, in 2022 they managed to detect and prohibit the passage of 77 tons, that is, an increase of 42% in relation to the 2021.
“It is also important to highlight the destruction of scheduled substances subject to control, in this year (2022) 301 tons were destroyed, exceeding those that were destroyed in three consecutive years, 2019, 2020 and 2021, which were 278 tons, and added to the 90 tons of liquid precursors with which it was intended to process some 400 tons,” said Ramírez.
The national police chief indicated that after coordination meetings held with his Colombian counterparts, some 89,000 hectares were identified in the northern border area related to the planting and harvesting of coca leaves, and that represented the immobility of 213 tons of drugs in that sector.
About 2.5 tons of drugs seized 160 miles west of Manta
European ports in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Lithuania and France were the ones that seized drugs of Ecuadorian origin, since 78% of the total drugs detected abroad and that had Ecuador as a consignment were sent there.
By 2023, the Anti-drug unit of the National Police will strengthen controls and promote good police practices with the creation of a computer system as well as the modernization of verifications in ports.
Thus, for example, in Guayaquil, Operation Blasón G will take place, which converges with the zoning of a predictive methodology that will analyze indicators and mathematical formulas, which will allow the National Police to have objectivity when intervening in each of the districts of the country.
Meanwhile, Operation Interca seeks the interdiction of first, second and third order roads in the country and thus strengthen controls on Ecuadorian routes.
In the third operation, called Pluarse, the profiling of ports and airports is sought through modernization, which will allow anti-narcotics agents to increase the effectiveness of investigations.
And finally Operation Confron, which is related to the strengthening and control of both the northern and southern borders, taking into consideration that, according to the investigative interventions in the northern border area, different types of drugs enter the country and from the sur several solid and liquid chemicals, as well as ammunition and explosives, Ramírez explained. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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