6 tonnes of marijuana seized, 9 arrested in northern Colombia
Colombian police seized six tonnes of marijuana from an organisation that shipped the drug towards Central America and Venezuela, and arrested nine of its members across the country. The network's leader was detained in Barranquilla; police said the group worked mainly from Cesar and Bolívar and had links to trafficking networks in Panama and the Netherlands.
Colombian police seized six tonnes of marijuana in an operation against an
organisation that moved the drug towards Central America and Venezuela.[1]Officers arrested nine members of the organisation in different cities across
Colombia.[1]The same operation seized 392 kilograms of cocaine, which is not
counted in this report’s cannabis figures.[1]
According to a police statement, the organisation mainly operated in the
departments of Cesar and Bolívar, in northern Colombia.[1]The police said the
organisation had links to drug-trafficking networks in Panama and the
Netherlands.[1]The arrests followed joint investigations with the Attorney
General’s Office, known in Colombia as the Fiscalía.[1]The organisation’s
leader, named by police as Hernán José Roa Ibarra, alias “Hernán”, was detained
in Barranquilla, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.[1]
Members of the network used high-end cars to move the drugs in small quantities
to evade police checks.[1]Listín Diario, a Dominican newspaper, carried the
same EFE agency account of the seizure and the nine arrests the following day.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The operation is dated to the reports' publication date, 26 March 2015; the sources do not give the day or days of the seizures and arrests themselves.
The reports state the six tonnes as a total without saying whether it was dried marijuana, how it was packed, where it was stored or which single site it was taken from.
No figure is given for the value of the marijuana, and the value of the cocaine seized alongside it is not stated in these accounts.
No charges or court outcome are reported for the nine people arrested, beyond the organisation's leader being identified as Hernán José Roa Ibarra.
Army troops seized 1,700 kilograms of pressed marijuana from a van in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, capturing one person after a pursuit from a military checkpoint. The Third Division attributed the load to the FARC dissidents' Dagoberto Ramos structure and valued the loss to it at more than 425 million pesos.
Colombian army, navy and police units seized about 2,700 kilograms of suspected marijuana from a bongo remolcador river boat at the Hong Kong wharf in Puerto Asís, Putumayo. Authorities linked the load to the Segunda Marquetalia dissidence's Comandos de Frontera, without naming suspects or giving a value.
Colombian police stopped a vehicle in the urban area of Chinchiná, Caldas, carrying 520 kilograms of marijuana and arrested the person caught in the act, immobilising a car with altered identification systems. President Abelardo de la Espriella announced the haul as part of two operations, the other being 358 kilograms of cocaine found in generators at the port of Cartagena.
Colombian National Police investigators seized 7,452 grams of marijuana in the Los Quindos neighbourhood of Armenia, Quindío, along with 98 boxes of clonazepam. Police said the marijuana was meant for sale in minimum doses at sales points around the city and handed the drugs to the local prosecutor's office; no arrests were reported.
