Police have seized a shipment of marijuana valued at $225,000 in central Colombia, Radio Caracol reported Wednesday.
The drugs were apparently concealed in a load of pumpkins on a service truck that was intercepted in the department of Caldas at a checkpoint on the road between the cities of Medellin and Chinchina.
The 24-year old driver of the truck was arrested and claimed he was unawares that he was transporting drugs, Radio Caracol reported.
According to authorities drug trafficking, especially that of marijuna and the base element of cocaine, hydrochloride, is the second most common crime in the Caldas department after murder, Radio Caracol reported.
So far in 2012 police have seized 5 million doses of marijuna and arrested 2,383 people in the 27 municipalities in the department and on surrounding roads connecting the area to other regions.
According to police commander Colonel Herman Alejandro Bustamante, the area is a key corridor for the transport of illegal drugs from the south, where the big production centers are located, to the center and north of the country, where they are distrubted to domestic and foreign markets.
