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World's opium source destroyed..
Luke Harding in Hadda sees dramatic evidence of the war being waged on the drugs trade by the hardline Taliban
Luke Harding
Observer
Sunday April 1, 2001
The mud-walled village of Hadda in south-eastern Afghanistan used to consider itself lucky. The farmers who live here had not one but two lucrative sources of income. There were the Buddhist relics that could be dug out in darkness from the many ancient stupas or shrines that littered the undulating valley and its jagged white mountains. And there was opium, a crop that flourished in neat plots, transforming the landscape every April into a sea of green and red.
The “N” number of the plane seized May 14 could be phony, a Venezuelan official cautioned local reporters. And, as we learned, it was.
Steven Lathrop is the registered agent for the company, Cheyenne Aviation LLC in Ellensburg, WA, which was said to own the plane busted in Venezuela. His American-registered plane bearing “N” number N395CA was parked right outside in a hangar, he told us.