/ 12 August 2005

Colombian army seizes cocaine worth $40m

The Colombian army said on Friday it has seized $40-million-worth of cocaine belonging to leftist guerrillas that was hidden in a cove on the outskirts of a city near Venezuela’s border.

Three people with suspected links to the National Liberation Army (ELN) were arrested during the raid on Wednesday, said Captain Sandra Garcia.

”[The cocaine] was the ELN’s. It may have belonged to one of their urban units,” she said.

The cocaine weighed 1,6 tonnes and plastic containers filled with cocaine-making chemicals were also seized in the operation near Cucuta, 400km north-east of Bogota.

Colombia is the world’s leading producer of cocaine. Leftist rebel groups and right-wing militias involved in a decades-old conflict in Colombia all use drug trafficking to fund their operations. — Sapa-AP