On the coc

Poisoning lives from Colombian jungle to the streets of Britain

In a remote clearing in the Colombian rainforest, blue plastic barrels leaking toxic chemicals betray the clandestine cocaine laboratory. Deep in rebel-patrolled territory, this tarpaulin-covered wooden shelter, where coca leaves are soaked in petrol, represents the start of a journey that ends with lines of white powder being snorted in Britain.

Two years ago this illegal processing plant on the fringe of a massive plantation of coca plants was where Celia Kasama’s family grew their crops.

Now it is in the hands of a gun-toting coke trafficker who pays rent to armed militiamen in a protection racket that deprives indigenous Colombians like Celia of their land.

For Celia, 30, and her sons Anselmo, 13, and Anibal, 10, there is no profit in the cocaine that comes from the green leaves plucked here.

For them, the multi-billion pound illicit industry attracts only trouble, putting them at risk in the long-running war between the drugs cartels, left-wing groups, the Colombian military and right-wing paramilitaries.

Meanwhile kerosene, sulphuric acid and ammonia – used to extract the active ingredient to make base cocaine from the dried leaves – pollute the river they bathe in and drink from.

“We were here first,” says Celia’s husband Erubiama, 52. “This has always been our land. It belongs to our ancestors and the government legally assigned this territory to us.

“The traffickers came here and cut down our trees and pulled up our crops.

“Some were armed, so there was nothing we could do to stop them. All of us have been put in a perilous position by the coca grown here.

“Dangerous people come to our village to get their money from the man in charge of the plantation. We are also threatened by him. He has a gun.

“We live downstream from this spot and there are four other plantations, too, so all the chemicals flow into the river we use. We don’t want coca here.”

I peer into one of the barrels in the lab to inspect a cream-coloured sludge at the bottom. Erubiama tells me this is the paste which will be dried out, wrapped in plastic to be sold on and then further refined into powder before being smuggled abroad.

Despite successes in the Us-backed war on drugs against the notorious Medellin and Cali cartels in the 1990s, there was record production of cocaine in Colombia in 2016 and 2017.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 423,000 acres of the South American country’s land was used to grow coca in 2017, up 17% on the previous year.

This was enough to produce more than 1,500 tons of cocaine.

Home Office figures show powder cocaine use in Britain increased by more than 8% in the past four years.

We arrived at the village of Alto Guayabal just before nightfall following a three-hour journey in a wooden dug-out canoe fitted with an outboard motor. Progress up the Jiguamiando River against the current was painfully slow because we were constantly getting out to push the boat as it ran aground in low dry-season waters.

The journey had started before dawn in Colombia’s northern city of Apartado. Outside its cities, much of the mountainous nation is notoriously inaccessible.

From the village, we trekked for an hour along a narrow path through thick vegetation to reach the cocaine lab. Being so distant from civilisation makes it perfect for traffickers. They can operate without fear of disruption and there is little chance they would be spotted by the army helicopters which fly overhead.

Our escorts warned of roaming gangs of armed men from the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the vicinity as we travelled along the river.

The group still exerts influence over swathes of jungle terrain. Just last month it carried out a car bombing at a police academy in the capital Bogota, which killed 21.

The coca-leaf plantations these guerrillas control through force remain their main source of income.

For this reason, the British charity Christian Aid has created humanitarian zones throughout Colombia to help families made homeless by armed groups.

Seven million people fled their villages during Colombia’s longrunning civil war with the notorious Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC).

Despite a recent peace deal with FARC, links between the narcotics trade and armed ELN guerrillas linger.

Thomas Mortensen, of Christian Aid, says: “More people are murdered for defending their rights in Colombia than anywhere else in the world.

“They have killed people who are cl ha ot un wh de be

RAW MATERIAL Paste which forms drug DANGEROUS Travelling into narco territory SOURCE Coca plant from which drug is made