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Mexican army makes record 105-ton marijuana haul

By Lizbeth Diaz
TIJUANA, Mexico | Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:08pm EDT

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers seized 105 tons of marijuana with a U.S. street value of more than $340 million on Monday in Mexico's biggest-ever pot haul, the army said. Heavily armed soldiers raided a series of homes in a poor suburb of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California, and came under fire at least once as they took the drugs, also arresting 11 suspected traffickers.

Troops found the narcotics wrapped in 10,000 brown and silver packages in houses and a parked truck. The marijuana was brought together from across Mexico over several months and bound for the United States. "The seizure of these drugs is without precedent in the country," General Alfonso Duarte told reporters at a military base in Tijuana, adding that the drug was worth 4.2 billion pesos ($344 million).

The marijuana was painstakingly wrapped and labeled with signs and logos for a series of specific distributors in the United States, the army said. The bust is good news for President Felipe Calderon, who has staked his reputation on beating back powerful drug cartels in a military-led campaign he launched in December 2006. Calderon is under pressure to show his drug war is working as the death toll over the past four years climbs to nearly 30,000 people, putting Washington and foreign investors on edge and provoking alarm among many Mexicans.

Mexican cartels grown extremely powerful over the past decade, while violence sparked by cartel rivalries has spread beyond long-troubled cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez to formerly peaceful places including the wealthy industrial city of Monterrey and the Caribbean resort of Cancun. Mexico is one of the world's top marijuana producers, exporting about 7,000 tons of the drug a year. Marijuana and home-grown heroin together generate more than $10 billion in exports for the cartels every year, according to private estimates.

(Writing by Robin Emmott; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Narcotics wrapped in 10,000 brown and silver packages are on display in the patio of the Morelos military base in Tijuana October 18, 2010.




Suspects are shown standing before narcotics wrapped in 10,000 brown and silver packages at a military base in Tijuana October 18, 2010.

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Soldiers stand guard next to narcotics wrapped in silver packages with stickers of Bart Simpson and the writing in Mexican slang
"I'm going as a wetback bro," in Tijuana October 18, 2010.




A soldier stands guard next to narcotics wrapped in 10,000 brown and silver packages
which are on display in the patio of the Morelos military base in Tijuana October 18, 2010.




Soldiers stand guard next to narcotics wrapped in silver packages in Tijuana October 18, 2010.