Two men, aged 31 and 32, who were cultivating the plantation were arrested, and officers said they were carrying a shotgun, a homemade muzzle-loading type known locally as a batebucha.[1] On the afternoon of Thursday, 12 September 2019, officers of the 27th Battalion of the Military Police destroyed 8,000 cannabis plants on a vicinal rural road at Taquariz in the municipality of Presidente Juscelino, Maranhao.[1] The two men were presented at the regional police station in Rosario after their arrest.[1]
The battalion commander, Major Pereira, said the battalion’s Advanced Service Group had identified four cannabis plots in scrubland near the settlement.[1] On receiving that information the patrol teams went straight to the site to support the Advanced Service Group team in eradicating the crop.[1]
The plantation was spread across four plots, along with several smaller seedbeds.[1] Police said the crop was already at harvesting point when the officers counted 8,000 plants and burned them on the spot.[1]
