GUATEMALA CITY – Anti-drug agents seized 400,000 tablets of pseudoephedrine – used to make methamphetamine – in warehouses at the capital’s La Aurora International Airport, police said Thursday.

A police spokesman told reporters that the drug was found Wednesday in the warehouses of Combex-IM Express Aereo, an air freight company.

While verifying the contents of 20 cardboard boxes, anti-drug agents found the pseudoephedrine, which is used in the manufacture of synthetic drugs such as the highly addictive crystal meth.

Police said the pseudoephedrine, the sale of which is prohibited in Guatemala, was transported to the Central American country from Bangladesh.

Authorities have not determined to whom the shipment was being sent, the spokesman said.

Last week, police seized 475,000 tablets of pseudoephedrine in the warehouses of Combex-IM, while 500,000 tablets were confiscated at La Aurora on Nov. 2 after arriving on a flight from Paraguay.

So far this year, security forces have seized pseudoephedrine valued at more than $15 million.

Guatemalan police on Thursday also found the charred remains of a small plane that apparently was used to transport illegal drugs.

A spokesman said the aircraft was found in a reedy area on the Las Chuscas farm in the southern coastal province of Escuintla.

At the site, in addition to the burned airplane, security forces also found fuel containers, the official said.

The spokesman said that police launched an operation in that region to find the people responsible for burning the plane and the possible cargo of drugs that was transported in it.

Guatemala is used as a bridge location by international drug traffickers who, according to the U.S. Embassy, ship some 250 tons of cocaine through the country each year. EFE