About 400,000 doses of cocaine base were seized on Tuesday by the Drug Squad in an operation called Tetras. Police dismantled a drug organization that smuggled in the metropolitan area and on the Atlantic coast. 39 kilos of cocaine base, among other substances, various weapons and vehicles, were seized on Tuesday while ten people were arrested.

The investigation began in early December last year and ended Tuesday when the Justice ordered raids on eight properties in Montevideo, two in Rocha and the other in Rio Negro, and ordered the arrest of those involved, the statement said.

The investigation found that "the people involved received the drugs from Argentina, at some unidentified point of our west coast territory and shipped it to farms scattered throughout the metropolitan area." Then it was distributed in that area and in resorts on the Atlantic coast, "noting that they also began processing certain quantities of cocaine base to convert it into cocaine hydrochloride that would be delivered to the European market."

(www.espectador.com and www.observa.com.uy www.180.com.uy, 13 January 2010)