:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/SG6QHU44P5DFDIALBKE3YOEWYY.jpeg "The French Navy captured 146 drug traffickers in 2023 1")
There The national army reported on March 7 that so far in 2023 it has captured 146 drug dealersresulting in the dismantling of multi-criminal organizations and impacting their finances by more than 1.2 billion dollars.
“In the frontal fight against the crime of drug trafficking, interception operations have become the spearhead of disrupting the distribution chain of illicit drugs in the world. The military forces carried out a powerful deployment of naval operations against crime, with its naval, aero-aval, naval infantry, coast guard and special forces components, in the seas, rivers and coasts of the national territory, contributing to the safety of all Colombians. “, underlined from the National Navy.
Other accomplishments the Navy highlighted include the fact that in 2023, seized more than 33 tons of cocaine12 tons of marijuana and three submersible-type naval devices.
Similarly, the operations led to the destruction of more than 87 laboratories, more than 274 tons of solid inputs and more than 108,000 gallons of liquid inputs, the latter heavily polluting the country’s ecosystems.
There The national army He also pointed out that these results prevented the sale of nearly 85 million doses on the streets of the world, that 330 people lost their lives due to overdoses and the generation of 16,500 new consumers, “thereby contributing to the global public health”. world, as well as the integral maritime and river security of the Colombians”, they explained from the institution.
It is important to emphasize that in 2022, In Colombia, 671 tons of cocaine were seized for a value of more than 16 billion dollars. The departments of Nariño and Valle del Cauca, on the Pacific coast, recorded the highest concentration of seizures, with 80 and 43 tons respectively. In Bolívar, in the north of the country, 48 tons were seized.
Agree with InSight Crimee, it is likely that seizures in 2023 follow the same pattern and be a historic year for the country in this sense.
For the foundation, dedicated to the study and investigation of threats to national and citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean, these results should be “due to the national government’s anti-drug strategy, which favors the substitution of cultures not eradication. This will increase cocaine production in the short term, as substitution policies could take years to bear fruit.”
To achieve these goals, in December 2022, Defense Minister Iván Velásquez stressed that:
“It is necessary to fight against the illicit income that comes from drug trafficking, which generates evil in our country, the Public Force uses intelligence and increases seizure and interdiction to achieve great results in terms of the destruction of substances such as cocaine, marijuana, liquid supplies and solids, among others”.
In another information shared by the The national army On Tuesday, March 7, it was announced that in terms of protecting the national economy, anti-smuggling operations have increased in the first two months of the year, managing to prevent the entry of more than 318,000 units of illegal goods in the country worth more than 1,300 million pesos, especially in border areas.
Regarding the preservation of the environment, in illegal mining, a crime that mainly threatens the resources of the country, 13 units of yellow machines were confiscated, used for the illegal exploitation of mining deposits, and more than eight tons of restricted metals, such as coltan
Finally, the The national army He pointed out that, in the same direction, more than five tons of illegal fishing were seized in different maritime and river operations and 1,712 species of wildlife were recovered.