Cocaine Factory Destroyed in U.S.-Bolivia Raid

A U.S.-Bolivian anti-drug strike force went into action for the first time Friday, seizing and destroying a jungle cocaine laboratory that produced 3,000 pounds of pure cocaine weekly, the Bolivian government announced.

“There was not a shot fired” during the operation, Minister of Information Herman Antelo told a news conference in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital. No injuries were reported during the operation, which was carried out by more than 100 Bolivian narcotics officers ferried to the hidden laboratory site, on a ranch north of here, by U.S. Army helicopters flown by American pilots.

Antelo said no cocaine was seized. However, he said that the strike force of Bolivian officers, called Leopards, broke up the “enormous” laboratory, seized a large supply of chemicals used in producing cocaine and arrested the pilot of a Cessna aircraft who was trying to remove equipment from the site.

He refused to give an exact location of the lab.

The raids are expected to continue over the weekend at an increasing pace, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, who have identified at least 12 suspected laboratories in the desolate backlands of northeastern Bolivia, an area of cattle ranches and widely scattered villages.

The Bolivian narcotics unit also has taken control of six other, smaller cocaine laboratories in recent days, without the help of the 160 U.S. personnel who arrived Monday, Antelo said.

Friday’s raid was “not just a skirmish,” Antelo said, “but is the beginning of a grand plan that will last indefinitely until we can control this scourge.” He noted that some workers at the seized cocaine lab had fled in advance, and added, “We hope that those who fled maybe will leave the country and not return.”

Confiscation Authorized

On Friday, the government of President Victor Paz Estenssoro issued a decree allowing police to confiscate weapons and aircraft captured in the raids and to destroy any narcotics that are seized. Confiscated drugs often disappear as cases move through Bolivia’s legal system.

In the earlier raids, the Leopards, trained and financed by the United States, moved into the Chapare region of central Bolivia and captured six other laboratories where coca leaves, the raw material of cocaine, were processed into paste. The Leopards continue to operate in Chapare, Antelo said, but stressed that no U.S. soldiers or aircraft were involved in any of those raids.

The arrival of the U.S. military personnel and daily flights of large U.S. military transports over the red-tiled rooftops of this city, the capital of Beni department with a population of of 45,000 people, have aroused curiosity and long discussions over what it all means for Bolivia.

A U.S. Army security unit has encamped at the airport here, but the fleet of six Black Hawk helicopters and the American pilots and mechanics are operating at a base camp on a ranch 175 miles north of here. Their base camp is not far from Santa Ana, near where the first raid is believed to have taken place. The Cessna aircraft seized in the raid was owned by Hugo Vigero Villavicencio of Santa Ana, records showed.

The sophisticated laboratories are located in this region largely because of its remoteness from police control and its strategic location near the major coca-paste producing area of Chapare, in Cochabamba department, 250 miles south of here. There are many uncontrolled airfields nearby, where cocaine smugglers can fly north to Colombia and other intermediate points en route to the United States.

The joint U.S.-Bolivia operation has produced protests from Bolivia’s opposition parties. The largest opposition party, the Revolutionary Left Movement, called for a special session of the Bolivian congress to debate the legality of the U.S. military presence. The congress is not scheduled to meet until Aug. 6.

The anti-drug operation also has generated opposition in other areas of Bolivia, where coca leaf-growing employs up to 400,000 peasant families. A meeting of peasants has been called today at Villa Tunari, in the Chapare region, by a federation of farm workers who are expected to complain about attempts to eradicate illegal coca leaf production and curtail their livelihood.