Mexico Seizes 294 Tonnes of Drugs, 9,700 Weapons Over Year - Defence Ministry

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) - The Mexican Defence Ministry has published a statistics report on drugs and arms trafficking in the country over the past year, revealing that hundreds of tonnes of drugs worth more than $1 billion, nearly 10,000 weapons and more than a million different rounds of ammunition were seized.

"In monetary terms, the drug volume is worth 24.813 billion Mexican pesos [$1.3 billion]", Defence Minister Luis Crescencio Sandoval said at a press conference broadcast on Tuesday on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's Twitter.

The minister added that the amount of synthetic fentanyl, which had been at the centre of multiple opioid overdoses over the period, seized during the year totalled to almost 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds), which is a little less than 600 million doses.

The areas containing poppy and cannabis crops destroyed by the authorities over the year exceeded 15,000 hectares (37,065 acres), which in monetary terms is nearly 10 billion pesos ($527 million).

Cocaine and cash seized by the FBI during an investigation of a Mexican-based drug cartel is displayed during a press conference at the Dirksen Federal Building Monday, Dec. 13, 2004, in Chicago

© AP Photo / Nam Y. Huh

According to Sandoval, over 4,427 short-barreled rifles, 4,852 long-barreled rifles and 457 hand grenades, as well as over a million pieces of various types of ammunition were also seized.

Over the past 10 years, more than 10 million units of firearms were smuggled into the country, mainly from the United States, according to the Ministry of National Defence.