Police burn a record 207,000 cannabis plants in La Libertad and Huánuco
Peruvian police burned more than 50 tonnes of cannabis in a five-day operation across La Libertad and Huánuco, destroying a record 207,000 plants on 34.5 hectares in an operation the interior minister said beat the whole of 2011 seventeen times over.
Peruvian police destroyed more than 50 tonnes of marijuana in a five-day operation, locating a record 207,000 plants in two central regions of the country.[1][2]Interior Minister Wilfredo Pedraza said the haul was seventeen times what police had destroyed in all of 2011.[1]
Operation Moño Rojo
The operation, dubbed Moño Rojo (Red Bow), began on 27 July and covered sites in La Libertad and Huánuco.[1]Officers burned the 207,000 plants they uncovered across the two regions.[1][2]The destroyed crop was valued at about 15 million dollars on the United States market, a record for the Peruvian National Police.[1]
Pedraza presented the operation as evidence that the government’s intensified fight against drug trafficking was working.[1]Peru is better known for cocaine, and analysts said little was known about its marijuana production.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Police eradicated and burned 32,500 marijuana seedlings and seized about 621.7 kg of the drug in Yacopampa, Chugay district, La Libertad. They also disabled two collection and drying centres; no arrests were reported.
Peru's National Police burned more than 120,000 cannabis plants in three plots at Chambara Alto, Sayán. The three areas covered about six hectares, and no arrests were reported.
On 12 February 2026 Peru's defence ministry said the army's 2nd Wari Infantry Brigade and police eradicated more than 119,000 marijuana seedlings on three plots at Sarabamba in Anco district, La Mar province, in the VRAEM, and seized seven sacks from two clandestine storage sites. No arrests were reported.
Peru's National Police carried out five interventions in Caucharatay, Chugay district, between 22 and 26 September 2025, eradicating 72,000 marijuana plants on two and a half hectares and destroying 723.8 kg of the drug valued at 206,760 soles. A separate Infobae account of the Chugay operation gives 49,000 plants, 200 kg and more than 500,000 soles.
Plants destroyed 72,000Area 2.5 haCannabis 723.8 kg
