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LATIN AMERICA |
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Police Worried About Poppy Plantations in
Ecuador
QUITO – Police are concerned about several
poppy plantations that have been found in
Ecuador’s Andean region, Ecuavisa television
reported.
The size of the plantations of opium
poppies, the raw material for heroin,
discovered in Ecuador is small, compared to
other countries, but police said they have
found about 35,000 poppy plants this year
hidden among corn and wheat fields in the
central provinces of Cotopaxi and Bolivar.
Police gathered up and burned the plants,
which peasants living near the fields said
grew in the wild and were considered weeds
by farmers.
One of the poppy fields, consisting of
plants of a “better quality” than the wild
variety, was found in Romerillo, a district
in Cotopaxi, police said.
The field may have been used to produce
poppy seeds, police said, adding that
laboratories may have been established to
produce heroin in Ecuador.
The head of the National Police’s drug
enforcement unit, Joel Loaiza, said
investigators had not confirmed the
existence of heroin labs in the country.
“We want to rule out any type of theory
having to do with the organizations that are
doing this,” Loaiza said.
The poppy plantations found in different
operations this year covered only three
hectares (7.4 acres) in total land area,
police said.
A prosecutor in Bolivar, meanwhile, said an
extensive investigation was underway to
determine “if we are dealing with plantings
done on purpose” or wild plants. EFE
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