Poppies Camouflaged to Blend in with Other Crops Seized in Chihuahua Mexico News Daily
go to original June 12, 2017

A soldier is surrounded by opium poppies (Milenio)

The brightly colored flowers of the opium poppy plant stand out clearly from the air, especially if there are thousands of them spread over many hectares.

But such visibility is not helpful when trying to keep them hidden from law enforcement agencies.

So at least one criminal organization in the northern state of Chihuahua took a logical yet innovative course of action in an effort to stay a step ahead of the law — they cut off the flowers’ petals.

When the poppies are devoid of their flowers they blend in better with the more traditional crops of chiles, onions and alfalfa, for which the region is better known, when viewed from the air.

But in the end it wasn’t enough to avoid detection by military forces, who this week discovered 14 hectares of poppies and marijuana concealed between agricultural fields in the rural municipality of Coronado.

It is suspected that women and children carried out the flower-cutting exercise as the work calls for delicate hands.

Rodrigo Israel Castillo, the commander of the 66th infantry battalion in the city of Delicias, explained that the practice is becoming increasingly common.

Read the rest at Mexico News Daily

Related: How Heroin Moves from Mexico’s Drug Cartels to U.S. Street Corners (Journal-News)

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