VENEZUELANS FIND ONE TON OF COCAINE

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Authorities on Thursday confiscated nearly a
ton of cocaine that was being stored in the basement of a farm house
in western Venezuela.

Police said they arrested three people who were in the house in the
town of Urama near Puerto Cabello, 90 miles west of Caracas and home
to Venezuela's largest port.

The seizure of 1,980 pounds of cocaine was one of the biggest in
Venezuela in the last year.

Neighboring Colombia is the world's No. 1 cocaine producer, but
Venezuela has become a major shipment point for drugs headed to the
United States and Europe.

In Venezuela's largest seizure ever, authorities seized 4 tons of
cocaine in July 1997 from a cargo ship that had departed from
Barranquilla, Colombia.