Honduran anti-drug officers seized 139 packages of marijuana weighing an estimated 69.5 kilograms from a pick-up truck abandoned after a chase in the village of El Playón, in Pimienta, Cortés department.[1] No one was arrested: the occupants of the Nissan pick-up fled when anti-drug units appeared, leaving the vehicle and its sacks behind.[1] The same vehicle carried 344 packages of cocaine weighing about 172 kilograms; the cocaine is outside this tracker’s scope and its weight is not counted.[1]

Police estimated the whole load, cocaine and marijuana together, at about 40 million lempiras on the illegal market.[2] The operation began with intelligence about a drug shipment moving through the Pimienta area and followed the pick-up truck until its occupants tried to escape.[1] The National Anti-Drug Police Directorate (DNPA), Honduras’s anti-narcotics police unit, carried out the operation with the investigations directorate DPI and the community security directorate DNPSC, through the UMEP-12 metropolitan prevention unit.[1]

Officers took the load to a police station, where the sacks were opened, counted and field-tested for purity.[3] Police said they were working with the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime (FESCCO) in San Pedro Sula to identify and arrest those responsible.[3] The police communications director said the suspected traffickers abandoned the vehicle and fled into the cane fields, escaping the officers for the time being.[2] One preliminary account said the pick-up got stuck in the cane fields after heavy rain, and that a single driver abandoned it.[4] Diario El Mundo, reporting the earlier police figure, put the marijuana at 60 kilograms, alongside 172 kilograms of cocaine.[5]