Nearly Two Tons of Drugs Seized in Calama

Carabineros and prosecutors in northern Chile said on May 23 they had seized about 1,900 kilograms of marijuana in an operation tied to Calama, a mining city near the Bolivian border. The arrests covered one Chilean and two foreign nationals, according to BioBioChile, which cited the police operation in the Antofagasta region. Separate reporting in La Tercera said the seizure formed part of two procedures carried out less than 12 hours apart in Calama and San Pedro de Atacama. The case added to a run of large drug interceptions in a region prosecutors describe as one of the country’s main pressure points for trafficking. ### Where did the drugs turn up? San Pedro de Atacama was the site of the larger of the two seizures, according to La Tercera’s account of information released by prosecutors and Carabineros. Officers stopped a truck near the Hito Cajón border sector and found 1 ton and 389 kilograms of cannabis sativa, equivalent to 4.167 million doses, the report said. (biobiochile.cl) Calama was the site of the second seizure later that night, when officers executed an entry-and-search order at a house in Villa Alemania, La Tercera reported. Investigators described the property as a drug storage point and said they found another 510.3 kilograms of marijuana, or about 1.53 million doses. (latercera.com) ### Who was arrested in the operation? Three people were arrested in the San Pedro de Atacama leg of the case, La Tercera reported, identifying them as two Bolivian citizens, ages 22 and 25, and a 48-year-old Chilean man with prior police records but no outstanding warrants. BioBioChile reported the arrests more generally as one Chilean and two foreign nationals. (latercera.com) Calama prosecutors have previously sought pretrial detention in comparable trafficking cases involving Chilean and Bolivian suspects, according to the Fiscalía de Chile website. In one earlier case, the Juzgado de Garantía de Calama set a 90-day investigation period after formal charges tied to 140 kilograms of marijuana, the prosecutor’s office said. That earlier case was separate from the May 23 seizure but shows the court track such cases typically follow in Calama. (biobiochile.cl) ### How large is this seizure in the region’s recent tally? Antofagasta regional prosecutor Juan Castro Bekios said on May 20 that drug seizures in the region had surpassed 101 tons over the previous 31 months. He said that pace amounted to 105 kilograms a day, or 3.3 tons a month, and that 35.6 tons had already been seized in the first months of 2026, up 289% from the same period a year earlier. (fiscaliadechile.cl) General Cristián Montre, head of Carabineros in Antofagasta, said the region had already reached 24 tons of drugs seized this year, a figure he said exceeded previous years. Emol separately reported on May 12 that Antofagasta had passed 32 tons seized in 2026, describing it as a record and putting the year-on-year increase at 196%, which suggests the regional total was rising rapidly before the latest Calama-linked procedures were disclosed. (latercera.com) ### Why does Calama keep appearing in these cases? Calama and nearby San Pedro de Atacama sit in a corridor used for moving drugs from border areas toward Chile’s center and south, according to statements by prosecutors and police in recent cases. In the earlier Fiscalía case involving 140 kilograms of marijuana, prosecutors said the shipment was to be delivered in Calama and then moved onward to central Chile. (latercera.com) T13 reported on May 1 that Carabineros had made what it described as Chile’s biggest drug seizure in 25 years in Calama, with more than 4.5 tons of drugs allegedly hidden and transported in a tanker truck by a Colombian trafficking group. That operation was separate from the May 23 case, but it placed Calama again at the center of large-scale anti-narcotics investigations in Antofagasta. (fiscaliadechile.cl) ### What happens next in the case? The Calama case remained under investigation as of May 23, with prosecutors and Carabineros continuing to trace the origin, storage and intended destination of the marijuana seized in the two procedures, according to the reports. Any formal charging hearing would proceed in the local guarantee court, where prosecutors in similar cases have sought pretrial detention and fixed investigation deadlines. (biobiochile.cl) (t13.cl)