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Drug lab discovered in D.R. police station

Santo Domingo - Eleven Dominican police officers were detained Friday after authorities dismantled a drug lab operating in the same building as their police station, a department spokesman said.

Four other men were arrested on suspicion of running the lab in Santo Domingo's Villa Consuelo neighborhood, spokesman Ramon Francisco Rodriguez said. A police investigation is under way.

The Dominican Republic and its western neighbor, Haiti, are considered key shipment points for South American drugs headed for Europe and North America.

Anti-drug operations have increased this year in the Dominican Republic and arrests have sometimes involved police or military officers. The nation's anti-drug office said Friday that it had detained the head of a military base who allegedly was guarding a group of drug traffickers as they traveled to pick up a cocaine shipment.

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