La Paz, Oct 1 (EFE).- Bolivia's FELCN counternarcotics squad seized $1 million in cash that drug traffickers threw from a small plane in the eastern province of Santa Cruz.
The operation took place last Sunday in the town of Pozo del Tigre, at some 140 kilometers (85 miles) from Santa Cruz city, Interior Minister Carlos Romero told the media.
FELCN agents detected a clandestine landing strip where a person was signaling to an airplane flying overhead, from which a white bag containing the cash was thrown.
According to Romero, some of the bills bore the seal of a Paraguayan bank, possibly indicating that the drug trafficking gang had connections in Paraguay.
Arrested in the operation were three Bolivian nationals, and, besides the money, agents appropriated two vehicles, a shotgun, a rifle, a machine gun and three mobile phones, a communique from the Interior Ministry said.
Romero noted that the money confiscated was turned over to prosecutors in Santa Cruz, while police launched an investigation to find the other members of the drug trafficking gang.
Last week the FELCN seized, also in Santa Cruz, 315 kilos (690 pounds) of cocaine that was being shipped to neighboring Brazil, by shooting at a small plane and forcing it to land right after takeoff.
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