Friday, August 25, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters): Colombian police responding to what looked at first like a simple traffic accident on the Caribbean island of San Andres found $40 million in cocaine hidden in an overturned Ford truck, they said on Wednesday.

The driver of the yellow vehicle, which flipped on its side on Tuesday while taking a curve too quickly, was in custody, police told Reuters.

"He is saying that he did not know anything about the cocaine," a police spokesman said from the Caribbean tourist island sometimes used as a stopover for illegal drugs moving north. "He is a key part of the investigation."

Police found more than a tonne of cocaine wrapped in plastic bags hidden in the truck's cargo of ceramic tiles. They said it was probably on the way to be loaded on speedboats headed for Central America, later to be smuggled into the United States.

Colombia, the world's biggest cocaine producer, is in a four-decade-old guerrilla war fueled by the drug trade.

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