HAVANA.- Cuban authorities confiscated more than four tons of drugs so far this year, mostly marijuana, from packages of caches thrown into the sea, reported Granma newspaper.

The 4,787 kilograms seized in the first ten months of the year exceeded the amounts recorded in 2015 and 2016, due to the increase in illicit traffic and consumption of drugs worldwide because of increased production, supply and consumption.

According to the report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), cited by Granma, trafficking routes continue to vary and diversify at an alarming rate.

It is estimated that about 97 percent of the transfer of drugs in the Caribbean region is carried out by sea, basically in speedboats that navigate near Cuban jurisdictional waters.

As a result of a local comprehensive operation, 244 acts of seizing occurred, with 4,462 kilograms of marijuana and 109 kilograms of cocaine, and 63 speedboats suspected of being linked to drug trafficking were sighted.

At air terminals, 43 international drug trafficking operations were frustrated, where 54 foreigners were arrested and 55 kilograms of drugs were seized.
Meanwhile, preventive actions and confrontation of misuse of medicines and marijuana crops in intricate areas remain as main internal challenges in the Caribbean nation.

In the neutralization of this type of cases, a total of 43 kilograms of drugs were seized, most of them marijuana, and small quantities of cocaine, synthetic cannabinoids, crack, hashish and other drugs.

Cuba has implemented a severe legal-criminal policy for treatment of those prosecuted and punished for drug offenses, while preventive work has been strengthened in the most vulnerable sectors of society as part of the domestic anti-drug strategy.