OAN’s Abril Elfi
5:01 PM – Tuesday, March 26, 2024
A large avocado shipment sent out by a Colombian drug trafficking organization has been seized. It contained more than $50 million worth of cocaine.
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According to reports, a Colombian drug trafficking group attempted to smuggle more than $50 million worth of cocaine into avocado shipments, but their plan was foiled when authorities found 1.7 tons of the illicit drug concealed within a fruit consignment that was headed for Portugal.
The interception happened on Monday during a routine inspection of containers in Santa Marta, Colombia, a port city in the Caribbean, according to National Police Director General William Salamanca.
The drugs were meant to travel to Setúbal, which is 30 miles south of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. The shipment was estimated to be worth $50.8 million U.S. dollars.
A video that was shared on social media depicted officers extracting sealed cocaine packages from the avocado boxes.
The cargo, which weighed 1,696 kg (3,739.04 lbs) is said to belong to the Gulf Clan, also known as the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The Gulf Clan, the country’s most powerful criminal organization, is made up of former paramilitary leaders, according to Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez on X (Twitter).
Dario “Otoniel” Ðsuga, the former leader of the Gulf Clan, was captured in October 2021 and extradited to the U.S. in May 2022. Later, in January 2023, he entered a guilty plea before a federal court judge in New York for smuggling 110 tons of cocaine.
As a result, in August 2023, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison and was fined $216 million.
In a statement, the National Police claimed that the interception stopped 4,250,000 cocaine doses from being distributed. In the first three months of 2024, authorities have discovered over 80 tons of cocaine at the least.
Colombia, one of the world’s top producers of cocaine, is under constant pressure from the U.S. to reduce its drug production. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that in 2022, Colombia’s coca crops covered 568,000 acres, a 13% increase from 2021.
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