Police and soldiers yesterday destroyed an illegal airstrip at Braes River, St Elizabeth which, they said, was being used to smuggle ganja out of the island.

Operation Kingfish operatives and Jamaica Defence Force Engineering Regiment personnel wired the approximately two-mile runway with explosives that made 12 large craters on the surface.

“In the last six months, the police force have targeted ganja fields in St Elizabeth, where the trade and export of ganja have been escalating,” said a Kingfish spokesman who asked not to be named. “The intelligence that we have is that the last time it was used was no longer than about three weeks ago,” he said of the airstrip destroyed yesterday.

Kingfish boss, Assistant Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds, said that the operation fell within its mandate of dismantling organised crime networks.

“Essentially, it is part of our ongoing work to take the battle to criminality, whether that be drug smuggling, arms trafficking, extortion or any other criminal enterprise,” he said.

According to Hinds, a regular audit of illegal airstrips is undertaken by Kingfish, which is also paying keen attention to air and maritime assets of suspected crime gangs.

Over the past few months, the police destroyed at least three other illegal airstrips in Lilliput, St James; Hector’s River, Portland; and Four Paths, Clarendon.

Yesterday, a cop who opted not to be named, said that since the arrests in recent years of persons accused of being major drug runners, a number of illegal airstrips have been appearing across the island.

Meanwhile, the police are investigating claims by some residents of Braes River that the blasts caused significant damage to houses near the airstrip.

A Kingfish spokesman said that if the investigation proves the residents’ claims to be correct, they will be compensated.