On August 7, special agents from the Paraguayan National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD, in Spanish) seized nearly 3 tons of hashish, in Capitán Bado, a city in Amambay department on the border with Brazil. The drug was bound for the neighboring country, the Paraguayan newspaper La Nación reported.
Authorities seized the drug after intelligence reports raised the alarm about the existence of a camp and disclosed its location, the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color reported. On site, agents found 3,600 packages of hashish. “The packages weighed 2,850 kilograms in total. At the campsite, we also found a long weapon and the necessary supplies for packaging,” SENAD said in a statement.
Various media outlets, such as La Nación, reported that the drug likely belonged to a “powerful criminal organization” that shipped the hashish to Brazil from that border location. The drug was incinerated on site, ABC Color reported, and no one was captured during the operation.
In late July, SENAD dismantled a hashish production lab, also in Amambay department. According to SENAD, the emergence of these types of facilities seems to be due to an increase in the demand for new marijuana varieties on the Brazilian market.
“Hashish is in high demand and is more profitable, although it’s not very common due to the careful process required to conserve it,” Francisco Ayala, SENAD director of Communications, told the news portal Última Hora.
For his part, SENAD Minister Arnaldo Guizzio told Última Hora that hashish usually comes from abroad into the country, and authorities normally seize it in airports and ports, but not frequently in crop camps.
According to the World Customs Organization’s 2019 Illicit Trade Report, customs administrations reported the seizure of more than 540,000 kg of marijuana worldwide, 20.8 percent of which was hashish.