Offices / Sections / Agencies

NARCOTICS AFFAIRS SECTION
SANTA CRUZ-BOLIVIA

FELCN Police Unit CANES and their antinarcotics canines at Viru Viru Airport.

Since 1976, the U.S. Government, through the U.S. Embassy’s Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) has spent almost 500 million dollars to support the Bolivian Government’s efforts to reduce illicit coca cultivation, to implement a solid interdiction program against drug trafficking, and to raise public awareness on the dangers of drug use within the Bolivian society.

For the past 32 years, the NAS’ cooperation has funded programs for drug trafficking interdiction, illegal coca eradication, drug demand reduction, police and prosecutor training, counter corruption, as well as for operational and logistical support to all Bolivian counternarcotics efforts.

The Narcotics Affairs Section has had a regional office in the department of Santa Cruz since 1992. The office currently employs many Bolivians, who perform administrative services in warehouses and provide maintenance to vehicles used in Bolivian Government’s counternarcotics programs, including operations carried out by the Air Force’s Red Devils and the Army’s Green Devils.

In this region of the country, the NAS supports the operations conducted by the Bolivian Special Counternarcotics Force (FELCN) and its specialized units in the departments of Santa Cruz and Tarija, which include Yacuiba and Bermejo, as well as those in the department of Chuquisaca. The NAS also provides support to the operations of the FELCN’s Rural Patrolling Mobil Unit (UMOPAR) and to its San Ignacio, San Matías, Yacuiba, Buenavista, and Puerto Quijarro bases.

In 2008, the Narcotics Affairs Section will donate 24 pick-up trucks for the counternarcotics programs developed in the department of Santa Cruz.

A CANES Officer and an antinarcotics canine search an airplane during a routine mission.

NAS-Santa Cruz also offers support to the Controlled Substances Prosecutors Office and, through the Air Force Red Devils Unit, supports counternarcotics operations with helicopters and  aircraft. In recent years these resources provided humanitarian assistance during the natural disasters that struck the eastern region of the country. The NAS also provides high-capacity vehicles that participate in ground counternarcotics efforts carried out by the Bolivian Army’s Green Devils Unit.

In 2007, the NAS, through its Drug Demand Reduction Program, worked with educators in charge of the Municipal Program for Healthy Adolescents of Santa Cruz’s Municipality’s Human Development Office. It also provided training for youth leaders of “Fundación para la Vida” on drug use prevention and other related subjects, so that they can better engage teachers and students of impoverished neighborhoods.

In 2007, the NAS continued to fund the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (D.A.R.E.), which trained 3,828 public school students between 10 and 12 years of age (5th and 6th graders) in Santa Cruz.

NAS funded scholarship recipients at the Tahuichi Soccer Academy.

Since 2003, the NAS has being supporting the Tahuichi Soccer Academy as a means to foster youth free of the scourge of drug use. In past years, the Narcotics Affairs Section funded the construction and equipping of a gymnasium and in 2007 it made a donation of $70,000 for the construction of a new shelter for 48 people in Tahuichi’s Villa del Niño Feliz.

Additionally, in recent years the NAS has awarded 24 scholarships to children from several communities in the country so that they train a year in the Academy. The scholarship includes education and meals for the young players. Last year, three students from the Yungas region and from Beni were awarded scholarships.