Bahia’s military police destroyed cannabis plantations in the rural areas of Sento Sé, Curaçá and Remanso, in the north of the state, during an operation called Força Aeronorte that ran from Thursday 5 to Sunday 8 May 2022.[1] The military police said its officers eradicated 209,700 cannabis plants in all, burning 172,000 in Sento Sé, about 17,700 in Curaçá and about 20,000 in Remanso.[2] The 172,000 plants in Sento Sé stood on 5.7 hectares, a perimeter measured by GPS, according to the regional policing command’s statement.[2]

That plot drew water from the Verde river through two high-powered pumps and more than 1,000 metres of pipe feeding drip hoses, and two artesian wells ran on a solar system of eight panels and an inverter.[2] Officers arrested one cultivator at the Sento Sé plot, who told them eleven other people had fled without resisting, and took him to the police station in Juazeiro.[2] In Curaçá the plantations were on small islands near the riverside area of the municipality, and in Remanso the crop grew on an island close to the São Francisco river, where officers found no one.[2]

The operation, run by the Northern Region and Specialised Policing commands, deployed 465 military police officers, the operation statement said.[2] The command counted seven drug seizures, five people taken to a police station, five arrests in the act, two weapons seized and one arrest warrant served, the same tally g1 published.[1] Metro1 reported five arrests in the act and one arrest warrant served, and quoted Colonel Valter Araújo, commander of the northern region policing command, saying traffickers chose the area for its difficult access and that drones and anonymous tips led officers to the plantations.[3] Bahia Notícias reported six people arrested in the act for the same operation.[4] iBahia reported the operation in Juazeiro, Casa Nova, Curaçá and Sento Sé, with about 500 police taking part, and in its text gave five arrests in the act plus one arrest warrant.[5]