Ecuadorian army destroys 411,000 poppy plants

Nearly 411,000 poppy plants, raw materials for producing drugs such as heroin, were destroyed in raids by soldiers and policemen in the province of Chimborazo, said Tuesday the Ecuadorian army.

The poppy plants were located between licit crops, so “it was not ‘weed’ as said the residents of the community but were planted in a technical, whereupon they proceeded to incineration,” said the institution in a statement.

The Ecuadorian authorities reported that during the first quarter of 2012 had been removed four plantations of coca leaf.

According to monitoring the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published last September, coca cultivation remained marginal in Ecuador, where in 2010 were detected 25 hectares compared to 61,200 and 57,000 in their neighbors Peru and Colombia, respectively. Read Article