On Saturday 22 August 2026, officers of Chile’s National Customs Service stopped a foreign-plated tanker at the Ollagüe border crossing, in the Antofagasta region.[1][2] Customs says the truck had been declared to be running empty, and that the cannabis was inside the cargo tank.[2] The Antofagasta regional prosecutor’s office says officers used a scanner and found packages of marijuana.[1]
The seizure was 352 kilograms and 520 grams, in 260 packages.[1][2] Detectives of the Investigations Police (PDI), under the Internal Border plan based in San Pedro de Atacama and with the Calama local prosecutor’s office, followed the shipment.[2] In the early hours they arrested two people in Antofagasta, a Colombian and a Venezuelan, whom Subprefect Patricio Méndez Charcas, head of the Calama anti-drug brigade, described as the final receivers.[1][2] The Bolivian driver was also held.[1] Méndez said the group meant to move the cannabis on to the centre and south of the country.[2] Officers also seized the tanker, a smaller vehicle and three mobile phones.[2]
On 25 August the Antofagasta regional prosecutor’s anti-drug unit formally charged all three with drug trafficking.[1] A court ordered them held in preventive custody and set 100 days for the investigation.[1]
The regional customs director, Francisco Romero Papasideris, said the find came from risk profiling, and that Ollagüe had yielded more than 350 kg in this case.[2] The prosecutor’s spokeswoman, Tamara Farren, said drug seizures in the region for the year were then about 55 tonnes.[1][2] The regional public-security secretary, Juan Fernández Valenzuela, spoke of more than 370 kilograms taken out of circulation, above the 352.52 kilograms Customs and the prosecutor’s office reported.[2]
