Nearly 1,000 kilograms of seized narcotics destroyed in Argentina's capital
Buenos Aires authorities incinerated more than 960 kg of illegal substances from a dozen judicial cases involving drug trafficking and sales.
Nearly 1,000 kilograms of seized narcotics destroyed in Argentina's capital
More than 960 kilograms of narcotics were reduced to ashes in the City of Buenos Aires, as part of an evidence destruction operation arising from thirteen judicial cases investigating the trafficking and sale of prohibited substances. The burnt merchandise included 640 kilograms of a potent veterinary drug used illegally as a hallucinogen, along with 183 kilograms of cannabis and 137 of cocaine.
The largest shipment of ketamine had been intercepted three months earlier in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Caballito. Police officers discovered that a cargo vehicle with plates from the neighbouring northern country was concealing 400 litres of the substance in liquid form inside a fuel tank adapted for smuggling. The black market value of that seizure was around one and a half million dollars, making it one of the most significant seizures of its kind in local history.
The incineration was carried out under the direct supervision of the city's chief executive, who was accompanied by the principal authorities from the security portfolio and the local police force. The mayor highlighted the accumulated figures from his administration: in 2024 more than 1,110 kilograms had already been destroyed, while in the previous year the figure reached 2,250. He also stressed that tens of thousands of annual operations are being carried out against the illegal trade in psychotropic substances.
During the last three years, the incineration of prohibited substances exceeded 4,320 kilograms, including not only the three main types of drugs but also synthetic pills, ketamine and inhalation devices containing tetrahydrocannabinol. In parallel, anti-drug operations totalled more than 30,000 and nearly 300 drug-selling bunkers have been dismantled since 2019.
Ketamine, originally developed as an anaesthetic for medical procedures, is used in clandestine networks for its dissociative and hallucinogenic properties.
The transfer of evidence began at the headquarters of the department specialising in combating drug trafficking and concluded at the crematorium ovens of Chacarita cemetery, where the final combustion took place. The entire operation was organised by the city's security force.
The head of government took the opportunity to criticise opposition political sectors which, in his view, downplay the impact of street-level drug dealing. He argued that retail sales are what directly affect neighbourhoods and turn minors into instruments of crime, and that his administration acts neighbourhood by neighbourhood in response to each citizen alert.
The head of the local security portfolio, for his part, described the destroyed substance as "poison that harms the community" and emphasised that this type of action represents the final stage of daily and sustained work against what he called a social scourge.
_Source: ImpulsoBaires_
Source: Google News AR — Buenos Aires