Venezuela Steps Up Efforts To Thwart Cocaine Traffic

The United States estimates that up to 250 tons of cocaine -- more than a third of what Colombia produced -- passed through Venezuela last year, more than double the amount trafficked in the 1990s.
That has prompted concern that Venezuela, though always a route for smuggling, has become a major sieve, despite the $6 billion the United States has spent since 2000 to fight drugs and Marxist guerrillas in Colombia.