THE NARCO-TIMBER CASE AND THE IMPOSSIBLE CRIME
CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE
In December 2025, Import Export Gazzaniga, a company with more than 20 years of experience in the timber industry, sent a shipment of Tajibo wood to Europe through the Port of Arica terminal in Chile, pursuant to the 1904 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Bolivia and Chile, which enables free commercial transit. As usual, the timber shipment left the company’s timber yards, where more than 20 workers carried out various tasks involving sawing, curing, and packaging the wood, with no irregularities whatsoever. The shipment was then dispatched by road with a transport company, and the journey from Santa Cruz to the Port of Arica took three days without delay.
During the inspections carried out by the Bolivian National Customs Authority at Tambo Quemado, the shipment was examined and inspected by customs officers and the institution’s security personnel, who found no irregularities and, in particular, no controlled substances either inside or on the outside of the shipment. The cargo was therefore cleared to continue its journey after being sealed with a security seal certifying that it had been inspected by Customs. According to a written report, once the timber shipment arrived at the Port of Arica terminal, it was inspected by the Anti-Drug Canine Unit, scanned, and subsequently cleared for containerization and loading onto a vessel for delivery to its destination. However, before this could happen, a second examination or inspection was carried out at the port, this time not by customs authorities but by investigative authorities. According to a written report by the Chilean Maritime Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Arica and Parinacota, another inspection was conducted with a canine unit and, following suspicion, a scan was performed using a portable MX908 mass spectrometer for the rapid detection of hazardous substances. The result was that “NO TARGET DETECTED.”
On the grounds that the company had increased its exports from 7 to 13 during the previous year, the authorities decided to conduct a third inspection with a canine unit and a second scan using a portable MX908 mass spectrometer for the rapid detection of hazardous substances. Once again, the conclusion was “NO TARGET DETECTED.” Finally, according to a written report, certain inconsistencies—including the increase in the company’s exports; inconsistencies in the export documentation, which indicated that the recipient and consignee of the timber were different; the fact that the port of entry into Europe and the timber’s final destination were different; and information gathered about those recipients—led the Chilean authorities to conclude that controlled substances might have been present in the Tajibo timber shipment belonging to Import Export Gazzaniga, allegedly through a method involving impregnation of the wood. Two samples were therefore taken for analysis by controlled-substance laboratories (the Public Health Institute and the Investigative Police of Chile), and the timber was subsequently seized.
Having learned only of the negative result of the first inspection conducted by the Anti-Drug Canine Unit at the Port of Arica on the Tajibo timber shipment, and considering the material and factual impossibility of any controlled substance being present in the wood, the same company decided, in January 2026, to proceed with a second shipment, this time of Morado wood, which was already in progress. The same steps as in the previous shipment were followed, and the journey again took three days. The shipment was once more inspected by the Bolivian National Customs Authority at Tambo Quemado, which placed a security seal after finding no irregularities in the cargo. It was ultimately inspected by the Anti-Drug Canine Unit at the Port of Arica terminal, which ordered its release because no controlled substances were found, allowing the cargo to be containerized and loaded. Nevertheless, following the same procedure as before, a second inspection was conducted, the result of which remains unknown to this day because the authorities involved have not provided a written report.
On Tuesday, March 24, 2026, almost four months after both shipments of Tajibo and Morado wood had been seized, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Arica and Parinacota announced at a press briefing the seizure of 68.726 tonnes of cargo wood originating in Bolivia. Following this announcement, and without written evidence from the neighboring country, the Bolivian State initiated investigations against Import Export Gazzaniga. In the criminal proceedings, the company demonstrated the “ABSENCE OF ANY CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE” through a canine inspection inside the factory and, above all, through an expert examination conducted by the Technical-Scientific Research Center for Toxicology and Controlled Substances, which operates under the Special Anti-Narcotics Force (F.E.L.C.N.). The Center analyzed remaining samples of the same Tajibo and Morado wood exported to Chile using laboratory equipment known as a gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer, obtaining a negative result that favored the company.
Subsequently, on June 8, 2026, the Arica Prosecutor’s Office announced an operation of a much greater scale. Approximately 1,080.80 tonnes of allegedly contaminated timber from Bolivia were detected in 45 containers at the ports of Arica, San Antonio, and Valparaíso. The Prosecutor’s Office initially estimated that the shipment contained approximately 108 tonnes of drugs, mainly cocaine hydrochloride and ketamine, publicly stating that this represented 10% of the total cargo. In response to the news, the Bolivian State ordered investigations to be opened against the companies involved. The investigation now concerned not only Import Export Gazzaniga but also 45 other companies, in connection with the alleged offense of trafficking controlled substances by impregnating timber.
According to a written report, in April 2026 the Public Health Institute of Chile issued an expert opinion finding that the analyzed samples of Morado wood belonging to Import Export Gazzaniga contained only trace levels of cocaine, ketamine, and caffeine below 5%. Months later, in June 2026, the same institution reported in writing that the analyzed Tajibo wood samples from the same company contained only trace levels of cocaine and ketamine below 5%. Interestingly, many companies represented by the same lawyers in the proceedings in Arica obtained the same results from the analysis of their timber samples: only trace levels of cocaine, ketamine, and caffeine below 5%. This leads us to raise a number of questions and hypotheses:
Why did all the companies have the same common denominator in their results, with trace levels of cocaine and ketamine below 5%, even though most had been operating in the timber industry for more than 20 years, had the same owners, and had never previously experienced any problems with their exports?
The finding of 5% or less of cocaine or ketamine traces did not correspond to the public statements made by the Prosecutor of Arica and Parinacota, who had said that each timber shipment had been impregnated with controlled substances at a rate of 10% to 20%. This would be equivalent to 108 tonnes of drugs found in the 1,080.80 tonnes of seized timber. The operation was described as the largest seizure of controlled substances in the world.
Why had inspections and expert examinations carried out by specialists in Bolivia found no controlled substances in the companies’ warehouses or in samples taken from the remaining portions of the exported timber, whereas the opposite conclusion had been reached in Arica?
Why had inspections of the allegedly contaminated timber conducted by Bolivian Customs at Tambo Quemado and at the Port of Arica, as well as the expert tests carried out twice with a portable MX908 mass spectrometer, all yielded negative results? Nevertheless, the Chilean authorities decided to seize the timber shipments.
Neither the Tajibo nor the Morado timber shipments had experienced any delay along the Santa Cruz–Arica route. Who impregnated the wood with controlled substances at a rate of 10% to 20%, and when and how was this done, considering that, even if such impregnation were possible, it could not be carried out in three days, since these species are not susceptible to impregnation?
More than 45 companies are under investigation, yet not a single person has been identified or arrested in the investigations.
Without these questions having been resolved, and in view of the apparent absence of controlled substances in the timber seized by the Prosecutor’s Office of Arica and Parinacota, during the last week of September the Chilean institutions decided to burn the evidence—that is, to burn all the containers of seized timber. The stated purpose, as alleged here, was to prevent counter-examinations, meta-expert examinations, or the collection of new timber samples for a second analysis that might expose the excesses committed. This was allegedly done in utter disregard not only for Bolivian exporters but also for the forests felled to export this timber.
The certification addressed to the Bolivian Forestry Chamber on June 9, 2026, issued by Dr. Jean Gerard in his capacity as Director of the Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), based in France, and endorsed by a statement issued by the Faculty of Forest Engineering of the Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University (U.A.G.R.M.), states that Tajibo and Morado, among other species, are types of wood whose extreme hardness and density make them 100% non-impregnable with substances. This places the present issue, which has international significance, within the framework of an impossible crime. In legal doctrine, an impossible crime is defined as the absolute lack of suitable conditions in the means used or in the object against which the criminal conduct is directed. Applied to this case, this means that no matter how many expert examinations or laboratory tests are carried out on Tajibo and Morado wood, among other species, to detect controlled substances, the natural characteristics of these resources make it impossible to impregnate them with controlled substances and subsequently extract those substances in order to establish the offense of international trafficking in controlled substances.
In conclusion, if the wood cannot be impregnated, the expert tests in Bolivia were negative, the timber shipments were not diverted, and the Chilean authorities themselves found no controlled substances during the initial inspections, then it must be established and proven that the wood was contaminated at the Port of Arica upon arrival or, alternatively, that the equipment used to collect and process the samples was already contaminated and did not comply with the international standards and protocols required by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for sampling and processing illicit substances. This is the only hypothesis that would explain why more than 45 companies are being investigated under identical circumstances and with identical results.
Msc. Sergio Diaz Gutiérrez
Master in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure
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