PeruU.S. police break up drug ring

LIMA (Reuters) Peruvian and U.S. police confiscated nearly a ton of
cocaine and arrested 29 traffickers in three coordinated raids along the
coast to break up a potentially large cartel, authorities said Thursday.

Eighteen Peruvians, 10 Colombians and two Dominicans, all members of the
same drugs ring, were arrested Tuesday in the operations, Peruvian drugs
prosecutor Juan Castaneda told reporters.

``If this organization was left for another six months, it would have
formed a very powerful cartel in Peru,'' he said adding the destination of
the drugs was unknown.

The biggest haul was 700 pounds of cocaine paste found in a sharkfishing
boat off the southern tourist resort of Paracas.

Police simultaneously burst into a house in the same area and found nine
pounds of cocaine in a clandestine drugs laboratory. And a raid on a house
in Lima's neighboring port, Callao, turned up 192 pounds of cocaine.

With Peru's air force, backed by U.S. technical experts, shooting down more
and more drug planes that try to sneak in and out of the country,
traffickers have increasingly looked to set up searoutes.

Peru is the world's largest producer of coca leaf, the raw product
for cocaine.