Thursday, January 15, 2009

Venezuela seizes 30 tons of urea for drugs production

Venezuelan police on Tuesday seized some 30 tons of urea which would be used to produce drugs in the country's southwestern state of Barinas, director of the National Anti Drug Office (ONA), said on Tuesday.


The Penal and Criminal Scientific Investigation Corps (Cicpc) and the national armed force on Tuesday raided a parking lot in Barinas, more than 500 km southwest of Caracas and found the urea hidden in a vehicle, Nestor Reverol said. "No people were detained in the operations," Reverol affirmed, adding that "an agreement has been made with the petrochemical company Pequiven, subcompany of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), which requires it to strictly register productslike urea." The price of urea in Venezuela is about 280 U.S. dollars per ton, while its price in other South American countries is about 600 dollars.  

Venezuela seized more than one million tons of chemical materials to be used to produce drugs last year, according to the ONA. During the operations, the police also seized 476 packs of marihuana in the town of El Vigia on the border with Colombia, Reverol added. In 2008, Venezuela seized 54 tons of drugs, most of which were cocaine from Colombia, and some 4,150 people involved in drug trafficking were detained.

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