In the operation, four structures with the capacity to produce 2,000 kilograms of the drug per month were dismantled, damaging the finances of residual organized armed groups by more than one million dollars.
About a ton of cocaine hydrochloride ready to be trafficked was found inside the illegal infrastructure.
A powerful blow to drug trafficking was inflicted by the Colombian Navy in a joint operation with the National Army, with the destruction of a complex for the production of cocaine hydrochloride apparently belonging to the residual armed group Oliver Sinisterra, in rural Tumaco municipality.
The military operation was conducted in the Village Las Mercedes, where troops of the Navy Brigade No.4 of to the Joint Task Force for stabilization and consolidation Hercules and the National Army's Counter-Trafficking Brigade with the support of the CTI (Technical Investigations Corps) of the prosecutor's office, found four illegal structures where Collection Centers for solid and liquid precursors, a coca-based paste production laboratory and a cocaine laboratory for cocaine hydrochloride were operating; these are infrastructures necessary to conduct the different stages of drug production.
Within the complex, 930 kilograms of cocaine ready to be trafficked and 152 kilograms of coca-based paste were found by troops; as well as 420 kilograms of solid precursors, including caustic soda, potassium permanganate, lime and activated carbon; and 1,680 gallons of liquid precursors, including sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, chloroform and acetone.
It should be noted that during the process of making coca paste and cocaine hydrochloride, the residues of these chemicals are left by members of these criminal groups, indiscriminately in the soils and water sources around the complex, which significantly harm and pollute the environment.
This drug trafficking infrastructure had the capacity to produce 2,000 kilograms of cocaine per month; with its destruction the Colombian Navy hit in more than one and a half million dollars the finances of the residual organized armed group, GAO-r, Oliver Sinisterra, which commits crimes under the criminal command of alias El Gringo, in the South Pacific region of the department of Nariño. It in the same way troops prevented the circulation of 2,325,000 doses of the drug in the illegal international market and mitigated the pollution of Natural Resources in Tumaco's jungle areas.
The four illegal structures, drugs and precursors were destroyed in controlled conditions at the scene, by men belonging to the explosives and demolition team (EXDE), under strict safety rules and preserving all measures for the preservation of the environment.
Source: press-Navy of Colombia