Between January and August 2020, the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (PRF, in Portuguese) seized 331 tons of marijuana nationwide, representing more than the total seized in 2019.
On August 23, PRF agents intercepted a truck in Mato Grosso do Sul state and found more than 3 tons of marijuana.
According to the Mato Grosso do Sul PRF, “these seizures indicate a historical record on the state’s federal highways. The total is 227 percent greater than what the institution registered during the same period last year.”
On July 26, as part of its operations on federal highways, the PRF made the greatest drug seizure of 2020 in a single operation. The PRF found marijuana hidden inside a shipment of wheat flour in a truck that left the state of Paraná for Paraíba. The bags contained hundreds of packages of marijuana totaling almost 6 tons.
Joint police operations against narcotrafficking
On June 22, the Federal Police (PF, in Portuguese) and the PRF launched the first phase of Operation Carcará to curb the production and trafficking of narcotics, including its transportation and distribution in northeastern states.
According to the PRF, “The use of qualified policing, guided by the intelligence in Operation Carcará, aims to curb narcotrafficking and related crimes, from breaking the production cycle of marijuana to its transportation and distribution, especially in the northeastern states that make up the marijuana polygon.”
According to the PF, the joint operations of the police resulted in the elimination of 179 crops by burning 538,000 marijuana plants, equivalent to 180 tons of the drug that would have otherwise been produced and commercialized, resulting in a loss of millions of dollars for criminal organizations.