35,000 cannabis plants were destroyed Thursday and also half a ton of dry marijuana was burnt in a joint operation between Peruvian national police and the Peruvian army, report the Ministry of the Interior.
The drugs were found thanks to intelligence information which alerted the authorities that the illegal plants were being grown in an area locally known as ‘hacienda caldera’, in the Ayacucha district of Anco. The drugs were subsequently sent to Lima.
The local Vraem Police (Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers) front and the special Vraem Commando went to the area with five cars and found four hectares of land with approximately 35,000 plants being grown on it.
In the same area, the National Police and the Peruvian Army found eight rustic buildings used as storehouses where they confiscated and destroyed 500kg of dried marijuana.
The area of Vraem is often dubbed as ‘cocaine valley’, and news source Aljazeera states that there is good reason for this, as 70 percent of the country’s cocaine is grown in this region. It is a particularly poor area with high levels of childhood malnutrition, and drug production is often the only way to earn a decent wage.
This news comes soon after a lieutenant in the Peruvian army was arrested for aiding drug trafficking in the Vraem area.
