The United Nations’ 2012 World Drug Report released Tuesday failed to show the reported increase in coca production in Colombia in 2011. Instead, the U.N. published last year’s statistics.
Colombian newspaper El Tiempo on Monday revealed leaked U.N. statistics that showed an increase in coca production last year.
According to the daily, the published statistics came from the Illicit Crops Monitoring System (SIMCI) that directly reports to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Nevertheless, last year’s numbers did not appear in the final UNODC report which showed the exact same numbers on 2010 published in last year’s report.
UN spokeswoman Preeta Bannerjee told Colombia Reports that the 2011 numbers — showing an increase from 62,000 to 64,000 hectares used for coca cultivation — were not supposed to appear in the annual drug report, but in a separate report that is due in July.
“That is refering to a report that is going to come out probably in July, so it was leaked. I don’t know by whom, somewhere in Colombia,” Bannerjee said.
Bannerjee would not “officially confirm” the veracity of the numbers in the leaked report.
