Associated Press
 
June 16, 2009
 
GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemalan authorities have confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million in a record seizure of the precursor chemical for methamphetamine.
 
Police spokesman Donald Gonzalez says the 9.9 million pills were seized Tuesday at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala's main port on the Pacific coast.
 
The Attorney General's Office says information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration led to the seizure. The pills arrived in a ship coming from India.
 
Gonzalez called it the biggest seizure of methamphetamine precursor chemicals in Guatemala.
 
Central American officials say drug cartels are increasingly smuggling in pseudoephedrine through their region to get around a Mexican ban in imports of the chemical.