Colombia: seizure of six tons of cocaine belonging to the ELN

The Colombian government announced on Wednesday (June 29th) the seizure of six tons of cocaine in a complex of laboratories located in the jungle of the southwest of the country and attributed to the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN).

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Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano said in a video. addressed to the media.

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Operation Jared, in which three

were destroyed by the armed forces, was carried out in the municipality of Samaniego, in the department of Nariño, near the border with Ecuador.

said Attorney General Francisco Barbosa. Pictures show the structure where the drugs were made in the jungle.

Diego Molano had announced that the government was going to redouble its efforts against "terrorism" by armed groups after shots fired on Friday by President Iván Duque's helicopter in Cucuta, near the Venezuelan border.

The government accuses the ELN of being responsible for this attack, as well as for the explosion of a car bomb in a barracks in the same town on June 15, which left 36 people injured.

Last guerrilla active in Colombia after the signing in 2016 of an agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) after half a century of conflict, the ELN has denied any involvement in the attack on the military base.

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The southwest of Colombia has been experiencing an upsurge in violence for several months. The government attributes this violence to groups that finance themselves through drug trafficking. In 2020, the UN estimated coca plantations in the country at 144,000 hectares. Although the area is down 7% from 2019, cocaine production continues to increase, lamented the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Colombia is the world's largest supplier of cocaine and the United States is the main consumer.