Colombia Seizes One Ton
of Cocaine, 36 Kg of
Heroin
Colombian authorities
said on Sunday that they
had seized a ton of
cocaine and 36 kg of
heroin in northern
Colombia's La Guajira
province.
The seizure took place
on Saturday in Palomino,
a rural area 900 km
north of the nation's
capital, Bogota.
A speedboat was found to
take the drugs to a
fishing boat bound for
Central America and to
the United States. The
speedboat and three cars
were also seized during
the operation, but the
traffickers escaped,
said General Alvaro Caro,
head of the nation's
anti-drug police.
The seized drugs, which
had an estimated value
of 20 million U.S.
dollars on the
international black
market, appeared to
belong to "Los Nevados,"
a drug trafficking
organization linked to
the nation's
paramilitaries, he said.
"Los Nevados" was run by
brothers Miguel Angel
and Victor Manuel Mejia
Munera, known as "Los
Mellizos" (The Twins).
The two had confessed to
being senior figures of
the paramilitary group,
the Self Defense Forces
of Colombia (AUC),
hoping to get their
sentences reduced under
the peace agreement
between the government
and the AUC.
The Colombian government
and the AUC held peace
talks from 2003to 2006,
resulting in the
demobilization of the
AUC's 31,000 fighters.
Fighters who confessed
to their crimes were
subject to a sentence
cap of eight years.
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