Colombian police have identified a genetically modified and super-hardy coca “tree” that yields up to eight times more cocaine than a traditional shrub.

The discovery, detailed in a counter-narcotics police intelligence dossier obtained by the Financial Times, underscores the lengths to which Colombian producers are going to outsmart the US in its efforts to curb the drugs trade. “In their search for greater profits, drug-traffickers appear to have entered the world of genetically modified crops,” the dossier says, referring to a new variety of coca found in the remote Sierra Nevada in northern Colombia.