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As the days passed, however, the troops pushed deeper into the Narino jungle up to the Nulpe River. After cutting through the jungle for 10 days -- without receiving any supplies because neither the terrain nor the weather allowed air support -- the soldiers ran across a veritable network of enormous crystallizers and laboratories camouflaged among the trees.

Structures made out of wood and fronds served to shelter stoves with ovens, grinders, large power generators, dryers, and mixers. The Army believes that this equipment has the capacity to process close to 15 tons of coca leaves per week. After processing, each week these leaves turn into 4 tons of coca base and between six and seven tons of coca paste, which sells on the international market for US$25,000 per kilo.

Once the soldiers found the crystallizers, crop-dusting of the area began. One of the officers who is participating in Operation "Dynasty" said: "In three months of operations 27,000 out of a goal of 35,000 hectares have been dusted."

Trade in Llorente

After leaving the rural area and getting back on the highway that goes from Tumaco to Pasto, one comes to the corregimiento of Llorente -- a town that is 90 minutes away from the port. Llorente has 2,000 inhabitants, but on weekends this figure swells to 8,000. Captain Edgar Cardozo Quintero, commander of the Police station that was inaugurated a month and a half ago, said: "On Saturdays and Sundays the main street of Llorente is teeming with people." Cardozo is the sole authority in the town, which did not have a mayor, inspector, or any other public official for quite a while.

The coca pickers take advantage of Saturdays and Sundays to have a good time, and the main street of Llorente -- which is part of the same road that leads to Pasto -- becomes a mall of sorts with stores, barber shops, restaurants, telephone call centers, bars, and boutiques where one can purchase a pair of jeans for between 200,000 and 300,000 pesos and a bottle of whisky for 200,000 pesos.

Freddy, who owns a fruit store, explained: "We have a price list for weekdays and a price list for weekends." Consequently, a blended fruit juice costs 4,000 pesos on Tuesday and 9,000 pesos on Saturday. The same thing happens with the cost of the services of the close to 500 prostitutes that the policemen have tallied up (only 117 are registered with the health center). According to some of their customers, on Sundays the prostitutes charge up to 700,000 pesos per hour.

The Telephones

The story is the same with the "telephone call centers." These are some 30 small wooden booths with signs offering cellular telephone calls at 300 pesos per minute. The puzzling thing about this is that cellular signals do not make it into Llorente, and yet the calls are being made thanks to illegal antennas and state-of-the-art equipment. Both townspeople and merchants will tell you, sotto voce, that this "prosperity" comes from the coca crops business. They note: "If this did not exist, we would not have anything to eat, much less maintain our families."

Regarding the owners they prefer to say as little as possible. Some of them were daring enough to say that the vast majority of hectares are rented out to the rebels; that the 'paramilitaries' collect a tax to sail on the rivers; and that the "gentlemen from Cali" have sub-leased several hectares to the FARC. Occasionally these "gentlemen from Cali" come all the way to Llorente to close a deal. However, the meeting place has been changed to locations such as La Playa, on the Mira River, or La Honda, which is three hours away from Ecuador on horseback.

One of the men who is on his way to La Guayacana, a settlement close to Llorente, said: "That is a good place for coca pickers." La Guayacana is on its way to becoming another boom town. However, even though everyone admits that nowadays business is down due to the crop-dusting, the question is: "How long will the crop-dusting be effective?"

In the Brcna's opinion, it has accomplished a titanic task. The officer in charge of the operation said: "We made a tremendous effort to cover such an extensive area, with dense vegetation, and to neutralize so many hectares. The results speak for themselves (see graph)." District Administration officials in Tumaco, the base of the operation, hope that this crop-dusting will come hand-in-hand with social investment. A peasant said: "We will not be able to stop growing coca until we are able to grow plantains and sell them as well."

Are the Crops Increasing?

According to the statistics, over the past several years the hectares sowed with coca in Narino have increased considerably. In 1999 there were 4,000 hectares sowed with coca throughout the entire department. The figures for the year 2000 showed that the amount had increased to 7,494 hectares, and in 2001 it shot up further to 9,300 hectares.

The figures for the year 2002 mentioned 15,000 hectares, and by the end of 2003, when a study was made prior to the launching of Operation "Dynasty," 35,000 hectares were detected. Of this amount, 27,000 hectares have already been dusted, so 8,000 hectares still have to be fumigated.

The discovery of this "new coca city," which belongs to the rebel groups, has taken place 20 years after the Police dealt a blow to the largest coca production center of the erstwhile powerful Medellin Cartel. On that occasion, in March 1984, the police destroyed a network of 14 laboratories, set fire to 13.8 tons of cocaine, and confiscated seven airplanes as part of the famous takeover of "Tranquilandia" in the plains of Yari (Caqueta).


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