Production of coca in Colombia dropped by 61 percent since 2000, the country’s Interior and Justice minister said Thursday.
Colombian security forces destroyed 19,464 cocaine laboratories in the last nine years, largely because of the U.S. support with Plan Colombia, Minister Fabio Valencia Cossio told local media.
According to Valencia, Colombian authorities seized 1284 tons of cocaine in 2008 and confiscated so far 31 submarines which are used for smuggling drugs.
Between January 1999 and May 2009, the police sprayed 1,234,000 hectares of coca plantations, the minister added.
However, Valencia acknowledged that “there is much to do.”