Police begin investigation into finances of drug trafficking enterprise

The head of Peru’s anti-narcotics unit, General Miguel Hidalgo, announced that they will begin preliminary investigations into 124 companies and some 77 people suspected of money laundering. The investigation surrounds the Sánchez Paredes family, which is suspected of using the companies to hide decades-old profits from drug trafficking. According to Agencia Andina, the investigations will include the [...]

Family killed for halting coca production

A family of coca growers who had replaced their illicit yield for legal alternative crops was brutally executed Sunday morning in Peru’s eastern jungle province of Padre Abad, in Ucayali Department. The mayor of a local community told Radio Programas radio the crime was in retaliation for the family’s support of a State program that [...]

Peruvian municipal police chief arrested for drug trafficking

The police chief from the city of La Mar, capital of San Miguel province in Ayacucho department, was arrested Sunday night after he was allegedly caught transporting 25 kilograms, or 55 pounds, of cocaine paste. According to daily La República, Captain Pedro Guzmán Ayma had wrapped the paste in 59 packages and hid it in [...]

Peru anti-drug agency: 63.5 percent of coca growers acknowledge crop fuels illegal cocaine production

A survey conducted by the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs, Devida, and the Lima-based Calandria Institute, shows that a majority of people in four of Peru’s coca growing departments acknowledge that the leaf’s primary function is to fuel the cocaine trade. The survey was conducted in December 2007 in the Ayacucho, Huanuco, [...]

Gunmen ambush Peru police on remote Andean road

Peru police have begun a search for gunmen who ambushed a police patrol this morning. About 20 to 30 people armed with grenades and machine guns ambushed the patrol in Huanta province, in Ayacucho Department, killing officers Alberto Quispe Argumedo and Julio César Solano Cipriano and injuring officer Elías Pahuacho Córdova. The director of the [...]

Police seize plane-full of cocaine in southern Peru

Members of Peru’s anti drug police, DIRANDRO, seized a planeload of cocaine and firearms in the southern Madre de Dios department. Officials have not released the amount of the cocaine seized or the name of the Colombian man arrested in the operation. But according to Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro, the operation was “a big [...]

Peru president plans to publish list of pardoned inmates convicted of terrorism

President Alan García plans to publicly identify hundreds of Peruvians who received pardons for terrorism convictions during Peru’s internal armed conflict — a move many say is a smoke screen to distract attention from mounting attacks by guerrillas in league with drug traffickers. “I’m going to make public a list of 1,800 terrorists so people [...]

Peru interior minister: deadly attack on police station not sign of new insurgency group

Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro rejected claims that a new insurgency is responsible for the attack on an Ocobamba police station in Peru’s southern Apurímac department. “The existence of a new terrorist group is pure speculation,” he told daily Peru.21. “The intelligence services have rejected this possibility.” Officers at the station said 70 to 80 [...]