Colombian
Police
claim they uncovered and destroyed two labs dedicated to producing
cocaine. Eight suspected members of criminal gang ‘los Paisas’ were arrested.
According to authorities, one lab was found hidden in the
vegetation in a rural area of the municipality of San Martín, Meta in central Colombia.
18,314 kilograms of chemicals, a boat, furnaces, boilers, dryers,
hydraulic presses, metal molds with a combined value of more than 200
million pesos were uncovered and destroyed.
El Espectador reported that the lab belonged to Pedro Oliveiro Guerrero alias ‘Cuchillo’, a prominent Colombian drug trafficker. Cuchillo is the leader of the financial wing of paramilitary drug traffickers in Meta.
In Santa Rosita, a rural zone in the Boyaca department, eight men were arrested in a police raid on a farm. Police reportedly seized three revolvers and one pistol, as well as 193
kilos of cocaine hydrochloride and 240 kilos of coca base ready to be
processed into cocaine. According to authorities, the total value of the items seized was 3.5 billion pesos.
In the same farm police also found equipment used to make hallucinogenic drugs.
The lab, which consisted of six rustic buildings, “had the capacity to house
between 15 and 20 people every month and produce up to two tons of
cocaine,” said a police source.
The eight captured are believed to be members of ‘los Paisas’, a criminal gang associated with criminal organization ‘Los Rastrojos’.