A judge in Arica, Chile, has suspended the destruction of Bolivian hardwood seized in the country’s record drug bust for at least 60 days so a state laboratory can retest it, according to Wood Central. Bolivian forestry officials said about 80% of the 1,080 metric tons—largely ipé, cumaru and purpleheart—had already been burned before the court stepped in.
In July, Chilean authorities claimed 108 tons of cocaine and ketamine had been impregnated into the timber, a figure from the regional prosecutor’s estimate based on preliminary screening. Bolivia disputed the findings as a false positive as labs in Brazil and Bolivia have found no cocaine in samples from related shipments.
“Apparently this impregnated timber is at the heart of this, and it could simply be traces or not,” Judge Juan Araya Contreras said at the hearing. Defense lawyers showed some containers were tested on nine to 11 samples rather than the 25 per container the prosecutor said were taken; the judge agreed to broaden sampling and opened the case file to the defense.
The European Timber Trade Federation, which represents more than 1,100 timber trading and importing companies, has questioned burning the wood on screening tests alone. “Presumptive test results should not be regarded as conclusive evidence without confirmation through internationally recognised laboratory analysis,” wrote Secretary-General Nils Olaf Petersen, who also argued the species involved are too dense for liquids to penetrate meaningfully.
Regional Prosecutor Mario Carrera Guerrero maintains that testing established “that there are indeed drugs in the wood” and said he would accept a fresh analysis from any qualified public laboratory. The court reconvenes next week to select the lab.
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