La Paz, Jun 22 (EFE).– The “air bridge” used by smugglers to move cocaine from Peru into Bolivia has been dismantled, thanks to joint efforts by La Paz and Lima, the official ABI news agency reported.

“As part of this fight, the air bridge established by drug traffickers to smuggle cocaine coming from … Peru and using Bolivia as a transit country, has been neutralized,” Bolivian Deputy Miniter for Social Defense and Controlled Substances Felipe Caceres told ABI.

Bolivia and Peru have destroyed clandestine airstrips, seized planes and confiscated drugs.

At least 50 clandestine airstrips have been destroyed in Peru and more than a dozen small planes have seized in the Bolivian Amazon, Caceres said.

Bolivian and Peruvian drug enforcement agents have conducted 5,170 operations since January, seizing 34.8 tons of marijuana, 7.3 tons of cocaine and six tons of cocaine paste.

Press reports, meanwhile, said drug smugglers were using flocks of llamas to move cocaine from Bolivia into Chile.

The cocaine is smuggled into Chile via the pastures on the border, the La Razon newspaper reported Monday, citing Bolivia’s FELCN drug enforcement agency. EFE