Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior, justice and peace minister, announced the seizure of a large drug load.[1] The main operation, called Operation Soledad, was carried out on 5 January and seized two boats.[2] The operation took place in the Orinoco river basin in Bolivar state.[3] The seizure was located in Ciudad Bolivar.[2]

Officers found 238 bales containing a total of 14,280 wraps in the main load.[1] Of those wraps, 14,199 held marijuana weighing 6,758.66 kg and 81 held cocaine weighing 91.75 kg, together 6,850.41 kg of mixed drugs.[1][4] Cabello put the national total for the first 13 days of January at 7,148 kg of all drugs, a combined figure not recorded as cannabis here.[1][4][5]

Cabello said blocking maritime and air routes forces traffickers onto land routes where they are more vulnerable to surveillance.[1] He described the seizure as a blow to claims that Venezuela facilitates trafficking and to the traffickers’ logistics.[1] He said monitoring continues in hard river areas such as Delta Amacuro because of its network of navigable channels.[1]

Cabello said the seizures struck at the logistics of trafficking networks, which he said could not be sustained once that structure was broken.[5]