Police found and destroyed about 2,000 cannabis plants inside the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve on 23 September.[1][2][3][4] The site was in rural Brasiléia, near the kilometre 59 access from BR-317 toward the Transacreana.[1][2][3]
Most of the plants were about 50 centimetres tall, and officers collected samples for forensic analysis before burning the crop.[1][2] A Gazeta reported that officers kept watch at the site overnight on 22 September before police from Brasiléia and Assis Brasil joined the operation the next day.[1]
Police said their investigation began in July after they received information that a criminal faction planned to establish a cannabis field in the reserve.[1][2] Investigators estimated that about one hectare of native forest had been cleared to prepare the cultivation area.[1][2][3] They were also examining a nearby residence as a possible storage point and investigating whether the location was part of a route to Rio Branco.[1][2]
ContilNet reported that two men watering the plants fled into the forest when officers arrived.[3] A Gazeta said no one was arrested directly in connection with the plantation and that police were still working to identify those involved.[1]
Acre Civil Police delegate Erick Maciel said investigators found the plantation after an inquiry into a knife attempted homicide recorded on ramal 59 in rural Brasiléia.[4] The site lay about 54 kilometres along a ramal from the BR-317 toward Assis Brasil and roughly an hour’s walk inside the forest, with the seedlings about 50 centimetres tall.[4] Investigators suspect settlers and smallholders from the reserve were recruited to help grow the crop and that people from other states were arriving to organise it.[4]
