CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Cuba Seizes Nine Tons of Drugs in 2011

Francisco Arias Fernández
HAVANA, January 20, 2012.- High demand in the United States, the world's largest consumer of narcotics, which stimulates shipments along international drug routes in the vicinity of Cuba’s borders, contributed to the dramatic increase in drugs washed up on national coasts, comprised the bulk of the 9,181 kg seized in 2011.
This is the largest haul in the last seven years. Police authorities informed that although there have been no reports of aircraft sightings involved in this illegal activity since July 2009, a total of 50 vessels suspected of international drug trafficking have been spotted. Forces of the Ministry of Interior frustrated two naval operations resulting in the detention of three Bahamian citizens and one Jamaican.
A total of 399 packages of drugs were washed up on Cuban coasts during 2011 (291 more than in 2010), leading to the confiscation of 8,508 kg, mostly containing marijuana (8,418 kg), cocaine (81.7 kg) and hashish (7.42 kg).
Given this increase, the National Drug Commission has made provisions to reinforce measures aimed at preventing and counteracting this trafficking method at provincial level, with the joint participation of the National Revolutionary Police, the Anti-Drug Hotline, National Border Guard and Forest Ranger units, plus the Ministries of the Food Industry and Science and Environment, the Sports Institute (INDER), Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), as well as labor unions affiliated to the food, fisheries and transportation sectors.
Twenty-two smuggling operations were detected at the country’s airports smugglings, one of them in transit to Europe, resulting in the detention of 27 persons (most of them Cubans resident abroad or with foreign travel permits) and the seizure of 30.5 kg of drugs.
Although the health authorities managed to save the lives of a number of couriers who had ingested drugs, they were unable to do so in the case of a female Ecuadorian "tourist" carrying 0.81 kg of cocaine in 27 ingested bags and in her vagina.
During the year, the work undertaken by 94 community mental health centers was strengthened, as were 360 related services throughout the country, part of a strategy aimed at consolidating prevention in the community. There has also been more cohesion in the work undertaken in psychiatric hospitals and specialized centers available for people with difficulties in maintaining outpatient treatment, generally due to unfavorable social and family conditions.
The Ministries of Education and Higher Education carried out strategic exercises designed to prevent improper use of drugs. These included updating action plans within the education sector as a whole, and preparing students, teachers and other workers. In the case of universities, 15 educational centers throughout the country gave 1,107 training sessions (58 courses, 184 workshops, 552 lectures and 313 talks) with the participation of 73,000 students, 1,621 professors and other 2,743 persons.
Preventative work and sustained confrontation has made it possible to counteract the impact of a dangerous international trend which has seen an increase in organized crime combining drug trafficking, criminality, violence, money laundering and terrorism.
In addition Cuba continues benefiting from 33 government agreements related to combating drug trafficking, two memorandums of understanding and 35 agreements on legal and penal assistance. The country has promoted a policy of encouraging and strengthening anti-narcotics exchanges and cooperation with other countries.
A recent case in point is the signing in 2011 of two agreements on maritime and police cooperation between the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and the Jamaican Ministry of National Security, for cooperation in counteracting various criminal acts such as illegal drug-trafficking and others related to organized crime.
Cuban authorities have fruitlessly insisted and are still disposed to signing a bilateral anti-drugs cooperation agreement with the United States, based on an officially presented comprehensive cooperation proposal which would facilitate increased operational exchange, extending this to include other U.S. law-enforcement agencies, rather than on a limited case-by-case basis with little reciprocity, as it is at the moment.
In spite of the ever-increasing volume of packages washed up on Cuban coasts, the crises provoked by this scourge in several of its close neighbors and the challenges faced by a world contaminated by drug abuse and increasingly interconnected by globalization, Cuba has low indices of drug use and enjoys a privileged internal situation in which drug consumption does not amount to a health problem. This status has been achieved through a comprehensive strategy directed at discouraging consumption and illegal drug trafficking, but which requires constant improvement and updating to respond to the dimension of the challenges. (Cubaminrex/Granma International)
 

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