Roughly 133 acres (54 hectares) – that is, 9 million 200 thousand poppy plants – have been destroyed in the third day of the joint operation between the Federal Police and the National Security Commission of Mexico.
The State of Guerrero is a war zone for the drug cartels, and a joint operation was coordinated to destroy the poppy fields in the region, with elements of the Federal Forces Division being supported by a Black Hawk chopper.
The helicopter searched for hillsides in the mountains covered by huge amounts of bright red flowers, the characteristic color of the plant used to make drugs such as heroin.
After spotting the right area, the other operatives arrived by land at the location and began the cutting and incineration operations.
With this intervention, the Federal Forces Division of the Mexican Federal Police has destroyed in just three days more than 15 millions of poppy plants across 100 hectares (247 acres) of mountain ranges.
All the necessary documentation of the destruction was provided to the Public Ministry of the Federation , organization which will continue with the inquiries.
“The Federal Police has kept an operative presence in this area, comprised of the municipalities of Chilpancingo, Leonardo Bravo, and Eduardo Neri, despite one of the elements lost his life in the town of Chichihualco and of the negative support from a group of civilians against the federal authorities,” declared the Public Ministry.
Criminal organizations such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and cells of the Michoacan Family, the Knights Templar, Los Ardillos, and Los Tequileros are in constant dispute for the control of the mountain range in Guerrero, which houses the poppy fields used to extract opium gum, which is then processed into heroin.
A report presented last year prepared by the Mexican Government and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) states that 28 thousand hectares (69, 190 acres) of poppy plants are sowed every year in the country, which makes Mexico the top three producer worldwide .
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