After having announced, amid much fanfare, the record seizure of 12 tons of cocaine in May, Colombian authorities now admit that after careful analysis the real amount of cocaine found in a container in the port of Cartagena was only 16 kilos.
In May, the Colombian navy seized a shipment of cocaine bound for Mexico mixed in with blocks of brown sugar, as reported by Insight Crime.
“Either way, 16 kilos of cocaine is not a negligible amount,” said Admiral Alvaro Echandia, commander of the Colombian Navy, “that is many doses of cocaine that could have ended up in the United States.”
However the claims cast further doubt on often inflated figures for seized cocaine. In the past the Colombian authorities have claimed to seize almost the same amount of cocaine that the UN figures state that the country produces in any one year. One or both of them have the numbers wrong.