Brazil Acting to Halt New Trafficking in Cocaine
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South American drug trafficking rings, attracted by the availability of vital chemicals and by good airline connections to the north, are increasingly using Brazil as a processing and distribution point for cocaine, Brazilian and foreign narcotics experts say. South American drug trafficking rings, attracted by the availability of vital chemicals and by good airline connections to the north, are increasingly using Brazil as a processing and distribution point for cocaine, Brazilian and foreign narcotics experts say. At the same time, having long played down this country’s role in the international trafficking network, Brazilian authorities have stepped up both their own enforcement efforts and their cooperation with narcotics police in the United States, Europe and neighboring Latin American countries. Brazilian narcotics experts said it was impossible to gauge how much cocaine was being smuggled out of the country. But they pointed to the breakup of several trafficking rings this year as evidence of the strategic importance Brazil has assumed in the drug war after campaigns against narcotics in Colombia and Peru. Bolivia Is Source Bolivia, with which Brazil has a long and poorly patrolled border, appears to be the source of most of the coca paste and base being refined here, as well as of the pure cocaine being transshipped through the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro airports. Bolivia and Peru are the world’s largest coca leaf producers, and most of the world’s cocaine is still refined in Colombia. The leaf is made into a paste, which is refined into coca base and then converted to cocaine. More : query.nytimes.com |