The Paraguayan Navy on Sunday seized nearly a ton of marijuana that was being loaded into a canoe by a group of unknown individuals on the banks of the Paraná River, in an area of the Itapúa department (south), bordering Argentina, the Ministry of Defense reported.

The shipment was located this morning while the Itapúa Naval Prefecture was conducting a river patrol, the Defense office said in a statement.

Military personnel detected “several people loading packages into a wooden canoe on the bank of the waterway,” according to the note.

The Ministry of Defense indicated that the individuals fled when they noticed the presence of the military, abandoning the vessel and a shipment of 1,037 kilograms of marijuana distributed in 34 packages.

During the escape of the group of people, an exchange of fire with the authorities was recorded, the source added.

The intervention was carried out as part of ‘Operation Guarani Shield’, a strategy implemented since November 6 by the Paraguayan Government to reinforce security at the borders with the deployment of military personnel, especially with Brazil and Argentina.

The National Anti-Drug Secretariat of Paraguay (Senad) arrested three Americans this Saturday after an operation that led to the seizure of a private plane, coming from Miami (United States), which was transporting 261.6 kilograms of marijuana with a high concentration of THC.

The intervention took place in a private hangar located in the area of the Silvio Pettirossi airport, which serves Asunción, in coordination with the Paraguayan Air Force, the National Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (Dinac), the National Directorate of Tax Revenue (DNIT), and the National Police, Senad said in a statement.

Authorities discovered the shipment when several suitcases were being unloaded from the aircraft to be transferred to a vehicle that was destined for the country’s capital, Asunción, according to the anti-drug agency.

The suitcases contained 261.6 kilograms of ‘premium marijuana’, a variety of the drug that has a “high THC content” (tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis), Senad reported, estimating that each kilogram of the drug could cost about $14,000 in the Brazilian market.

An American, a crew member of this aircraft that came from the United States and made a stopover in Panama, was arrested at the scene.

Senad also reported that a man and a woman of American nationality were captured outside a hotel in Asunción, and that they are searching for other people involved.

The seized drug shipment represents “an estimated economic impact of 3.6 million dollars for the criminal structures involved,” the entity calculated.

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