On November 15, 2021, the Argentine Naval Prefecture seized nearly 2,500 kilograms of marijuana in the city of Corpus, Misiones province. The operation began in the area known as Puerto Natural Revinski, located at kilometer 1664 on the Paraná River. There, authorities detected a vessel that was arriving on the Argentine bank from Paraguay and then returning to its country of origin.
“Prefecture personnel went to the location and searched the area, which had dense vegetation,” the Prefecture indicated in a statement. Agents found bags scattered in the undergrowth containing 2,378 bricks of marijuana, weighing nearly 2.5 tons, the Prefecture said.
10 tons of marijuana
In addition to the operation in Corpus, agents carried out three others in Misiones province in the first half of November. In total, Prefecture and Argentine Gendarmerie personnel seized nearly 10 tons of marijuana.
“The three operations carried out in Oberá, Santa Ana, and Puerto Libertad, confirmed a trend that has been on the rise for some time: The amount of cannabis sativa buds being trafficked is increasing,” the Argentine newspaper Clarín reported.
The largest seizure took place in the city of Oberá, where the Gendarmerie’s Squadron 9 intercepted a truck on National Road 14 with more than 5 tons of marijuana. The vehicle had left the city of San Vicente for Buenos Aires, carrying a shipment of timber.
After checking the documentation and verifying that everything was in order, the gendarmes had the drug sniffing dog Popi examine the shipment. “The animal did not take long to react with its trained sense of smell, and marked the sector where the wooden panels were stacked,” Clarín reported.
Agents used an X-ray scanner and confirmed the presence of an illicit substance among the panels. “The NarcoTest field test resulted positive for marijuana, with a total weight of 5,433 kg,” the Gendarmerie said.
In addition, a Prefecture patrol caught a group of narcotraffickers carrying 4,356 kg of marijuana on the bank of the Paraná River. Authorities observed a truck loaded with packages leaving at high speed on a dirt road near the town of Puerto Libertad in Misiones. They immediately called for backup.
“A second patrol managed to spot the vehicle fleeing, without any packages and with two crew members, leaving a precarious home in Barrio Esperanza II,” the Prefecture said. With the support of the trained dog Indio, agents seized 175 packages with 5,515 bricks, containing 4,356 kg of marijuana, the force said.
In the town of Santa Ana, a Prefecture patrol spotted a man loading packages into a vehicle. “The driver of the vehicle was immediately intercepted and found to be attempting to transport 12 bags of marijuana buds, weighing more than 135 kg,” the Argentine news agency Telam reported.
