03-08-2008 10 Fields with 65 tons of marijuana found in Mexico

10 Fields with 65 tons of marijuana found in Mexico

Mexico.-
Sixty-five tons of marijuana were seized and burned on ten crop fields in the Mexican states of Michoacan and Zacatecas, officials announced Saturday.

(EFE)
The Navy Secretariat said that in the western state of Michoacan, crops on five fields with a total area of 98,475 sq. meters (24 acres) and containing 1.9 million marijuana plants weighing 45 tons were eradicated.

The officials said that, if they had reached the black market, the 45 tons of marijuana would have produced 22 million doses at a value of 36 million pesos (some $3.5 million).

The 45 tons of marijuana were incinerated, the Navy Secretariat said.

In another operation carried out by the Attorney General's Office, or PGR, five fields of marijuana covering 14,000 sq. meters (3 1/2 acres) were discovered in the central state of Zacatecas.

The crop was found on a property called La Peña Colorada and the marijuana that was seized weighed 20 tons and was burned by security forces.

Intelligence sources said that revenues from marijuana serve Mexican drug-trafficking rings as "cash flow" and that their main enrichment comes from cocaine and methamphetamine, the latter drug having greater demand in the United States in recent years.

The PGR also said that the 8,000 barrels that it seized recently from a clandestine warehouse in the municipality of Zapopan, Jalisco state, contained 1.15 million liters of chemical substances used by drug traffickers to make synthetic drugs.