Venezuelan police have seized 1.25 tons of Colombian cocaine bound for Europe, El Nacionalnewspaper reported today.
Two Colombians and an Argentinian were arrested in an early morning raid yesterday in a mechanics yard in an industrial part of the western city of Maracaibo.
Police believe the large cocaine consignment, stashed in a hidden compartment in the floor of a truck, belonged to a drug cartel from the Colombian city of Barranquilla, on the Caribbean coast, the newspaper said.
Authorities are investigating the activities of this criminal cartel in Venezuela's western oil-rich state of Zulia, which borders Colombia, the world's largest cocaine producer.
While Venezuela is not a cocaine producer, the South American country has become a favorite smuggling route for Colombian drug mobs, who see its deserted eastern seaboard where the Orinoco River spills into the Atlantic as a window into Europe.
Cocaine smuggling through Venezuela has risen sharply in recent years, totally 110 tons in 1998 alone, according to US government estimates. Most of the drugs head to Europe, where demand for the narcotic has doubled since 1996 to around 200 tons a year.
Reuters