Bolivian Attorney General Róger Mariaca said the drugs Chilean authorities reported finding in Bolivian wood shipments in June were a false positive, according to the Bolivian daily El Deber. Chilean customs and law enforcement had announced the “historic” seizure of 108 tons of drugs impregnated in the timber. The Bolivian government subsequently released a statement that said laboratories in Chile and Brazil “conducted specialized drug-detection studies and ruled out that the detained Bolivian timber had any type of impregnation with controlled substances.”
Trucks carrying Bolivian wood, which were held at border crossings with Chile and Brazil for more than 40 days, have since been released. Bolivia's Forestry Chamber said the export halt cut forestry shipments by more than 66% and disrupted a sector it says supports some 200,000 families.
After Chilean officials announced the seizure of the drug-laced timber, they claimed in a press conference “that there was an ultra-sophisticated and previously unknown procedure by which multiple drugs were being pressure treated into wood,” Hank Marchal, managing director at Robinson Lumber Company (Europe) said in an email. “It is also commonly known and well documented in scientific and legal circles that these rapid field tests often give false positive results in the presence of natural, non-narcotic compounds like those found in tropical hardwoods,” he added.
Chilean officials, however, reject the false positive-claims. Cristián Sayes, regional presidential delegate for Arica and Parinacota—the Chilean region where the Port of Arica sits—confirmed the presence of illicit substances, according to Éxito Noticias. According to Sayes, 44 of 50 containers tested positive for narcotics, and the investigation is ongoing.
