MEXICO: Mexican authorities burn 4 tonnes of marijuana

Mexican authorities burned nearly 4 tonnes of marijuana in the western city of Topolobampo, Mexico on Thursday (January 25). The drug seizure and burn were a joint operation by the navy, federal police and the Federal Investigative Agency (AFI) and another success for President Felipe Calderon who has marshalled federal forces to fight drug trafficking. The 4 tones of marijuana were seized on January 21 and 22 at Puerto Loreto, on the Mexican Pacific coast on two boats heading towards the border. All three crew members escaped. Hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines move through Mexico every year to supply U.S. consumers. The drugs were burned at the Topolobampo Port and Naval Captain Benjamin Pineda Gomez said that drug eradication had social merit. "This is a head-on and permanent fight against a great social cancer: drug trafficking," he said. "The proof of this is the seizure that occurred on the 21st and 22nd days of the current year of 334 packages containing marijuana. That action (the seizure) brings us together today for the destruction of the narcotic. This seized drug reflects the joint fight to eradicate this scourge, a constant and silent fight." Calderon, who began his six-year term in December, has dispatched thousands of troops to combat drug trafficking and violence as drug cartel fight for control of trafficking routes. Over the weekend, a group of alleged drug traffickers were extradited by Mexico to the U.S. for prosecution Mexico's northern Pacific coast and the Gulf of Cortez has become an increasingly popular transit route for drug traffickers who prefer to transport their merchandise by boat in order to avoid the army and federal police special operations on land and the expense of trafficking by air.

ITN Source | January 26, 2007

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