RABAT, Sept 9, 2012 (AFP) -
RABAT, Sept 9, 2012 (AFP) –
Moroccan police have seized eight tonnes of cannabis resin in raids in the east of the country, official news agency MAP said on Sunday.
Police searches uncovered 4.98 tonnes of the drug in three vans near the town of Oujda, and another 3.5 tonnes in Bouarfa, 200 kilometres (125 miles) to the south, according to MAP.
The occupants of the vehicles in Oujda managed to escape, it added.
Customs authorities in early August seized seven tonnes of cannabis resin bound for Britain at the southwestern port of Agadir.
Three months earlier, authorities found nine tonnes of the substance bound for France in Casablanca’s port.
Since 2007 Moroccan authorities have battled trafficking in the country’s northeast where the cultivation of kif, or hashish plants, has been reduced from 130,000 to some 56,000 hectares (138,000 acres), official figures show.
