About 70 SENAD agents worked for eight days in Morombí Natural Reserve, between the departments of Canindeyú and Caaguazú, and destroyed 202 hectares of marijuana.[1] The operation was called “Canindeyú - Caaguazú I” and also involved the National Forestry Institute (Infona), the Ministry of Environment and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.[1] Nobody was detained during the operation, whose procedures were led in Morombí by prosecutor Osvaldo García of the Caaguazú anti-drug unit.[1]

In Morombí alone the agents found 50 active marijuana plots covering 202 hectares of illegal plantation and destroyed about 600 tonnes of marijuana.[1] Authorities estimated the loss to trafficking groups in the area at 18 million dollars.[1] The agents also dismantled 23 camps set up by drug traffickers and 70 kilns where the remains of felled trees are turned into charcoal.[2] La Nación and Mongabay Latam reported the operation on a February morning, with the helicopter base set up on cleared land ready for grain planting.[1]

Commander Aldo Pintos of SENAD said the average marijuana plot is four to five hectares, and that some of about 10 hectares had been found.[1] Pintos said traffickers know the agents are coming and have already left by the time they arrive.[1]

Satellite data showed Morombí lost nearly 4,000 hectares of tree cover between 2004 and 2019, most of it after 2014, and clearing resumed in the northern part of the reserve after the February operation.[3] A WWF report cited by Mongabay Latam said 9,107 hectares had been deforested in the four reserves and parks since 2004, at least 2,350 of them for marijuana plantations.[2]