According to Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber, it is a ‘regrettable’ effect of a strategy that is providing ‘good results’.

In 2021, as many as 1,196 kg of cocaine paste were seized. Plus, 4,673 people were arrested and 1,467 were convicted for drug trafficking.

Present Uruguayan government has also reported the seizure of more money than ever before from organized crime gangs: nearly 17.5 million Uruguayan pesos and $743,000. According to Heber, the interior ministry is currently fighting some 45 criminal gangs in Montevideo.

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