Need to Store Cocaine? Try the Bank

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Friday September 15 7:48 AM ET

Need to Store Cocaine? Try the Bank

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CARACAS (Reuters) - Drug-trafficking in some Latin American countries knows no limits. On Thursday it reached Venezuela's Central Bank.

The bank's cavernous vaults received an unusual deposit: 290 pounds (130 kilos) of pure cocaine.

But it was all legitimate.

The Public Prosecutor's office asked the Central Bank to help store the drugs for a while because police had run out of space following record hauls of narcotics this year in the South American country.

Seized illicit drugs in Venezuela by law cannot be destroyed until an investigation is carried out.

``We hope it (the cocaine) stays there no more than a month,'' said Javier Carrera, anti-narcotics director at the Public Prosecutor's office.

``Anti-narcotics police have storage areas but they're completely full, there is even drugs in the director's office,'' he added.

Venezuela has become in recent years a major smuggling route for cocaine from the world's largest producer, neighboring Colombia, to markets in the United States and Europe.

A record 17 tons of drugs have been seized so far this year, 70 percent more than during the whole of 1999, including 8.2 tons confiscated last month in a billion-dollar international bust, the country's largest-ever haul.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 17, 2000


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