A Huge Cocaine Lab Was Found Inside a World Heritage Site in Bolivia

A cocaine laboratory capable of producing two tons of the drug a week was discovered by police inside one of the largest protected wildlife areas in the world.   

“This is one of the biggest cocaine-refining structures ever dismantled in the region,” said Brazil’s Federal Police in a statement about the lab, which was found February 28 on the Bolivian side of the park, which straddles the Brazilian and Bolivian border.

The lab was equipped with a sophisticated satellite internet system, an underground generator, and two runways for small airplanes. 

Authorities believe the laboratory had been active since 2020, inside the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, one of the largest parks in the Amazon Basin and home to a rich diversity of habitats and flora and bird species. Brazilian police seized similar precursors in the park in July 2021 as part of a two-year investigation. 

The park covers nearly 4 million acres of land between Brazil and Bolivia, and was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000.

Brazilian Federal Police shared images from the operation on Twitter, adding up-beat action music to pictures of agents riding a speedboat and aerial images of the laboratory.  

Official images shared by Brazilian and Bolivian police show an improvised campsite inside the forest along with several barrels allegedly used for drug precursors. Later photos show the same site in flames after police burned the laboratory down.

During the raid, authorities arrested four men—two Bolivians, a Colombian, and a Brazilian. 

In June and May 2021, another two laboratories were found around the same area, Bolivian newspapers reported. 

A Bolivian legislator previously publicly alerted authorities about the proliferation of clandestine laboratories inside the national park, according to comments on social media. 

“Noel Kempff National Park is plagued with drug laboratories, we alerted authorities during the last congressional session, but they did not allow us to speak,” María René Álvarez wrote on her Twitter account. 

The last time a laboratory that large was found in the park was in 1986 when U.S. authorities were looking for a scientific team, including the famed Bolivian botanist Noel Kempff Mercado, who were murdered by drug traffickers. The park was renamed after him in 1998.

The region between Bolivia and Brazil has seen a recent spike in killings and drug busts after the powerful Brazilian main drug gang called Brazil's First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) grew its presence in the region, according to local reports. 

PCC has made Bolivia its primary criminal hub outside Brazil to ship drugs to Europe. The city of Santa Cruz in Bolivia is today “a sanctuary” for a powerful PCC faction known as Narcosur, according to a recent investigation by Brazil's Estadao news site.

The Brazilian gang has ties to the powerful Italian ’Ndrangheta mafia, which imports and distributes tons of cocaine to Europe, a recent news story showed. 

Although this was one of the biggest drug labs ever found in the park, there could be many still operating.