10th June, 2014
Drug cartels in Peru and Bolivia, two of the world’s top producers of cocaine, are drooling over the bountiful market being served up next door by the World Cup in Brazil.
They are sending huge amounts of the drug to their giant South American neighbor, where the world’s premier sporting event starts Thursday.
“We have observed very intense drug trafficking activity as the World Cup approaches,” General Vicente Romero, director of Peru’s anti-drug agency, known as DIRANDRO, told AFP.
Since the start of the year there has been a huge increase in the number of so-called “drug flights” by small planes from Peru carrying cocaine to Bolivia. From there, it is transported over land to Brazil.
Secret landing strips sprout like mushrooms in the Peruvian valleys where coca leaves are produced. From there, planes carrying up to 300 kilos (660 pounds) of cocaine are taking off frequently, authorities say.
In the first five months of the year, Peruvian authorities staging commando-style raids have destroyed 72 such airstrips.
“Brazilian traffickers know that during the World Cup, controls are lax and they are preparing for a veritable festival of cocaine consumption,” said Jaime Antezana, an expert at the Catholic University of Peru.
– Brazil, champion… of consumption –
“Brazil is now the world’s second largest consumer of cocaine, but during the World Cup, it is expected to overtake the United States and become number one,” Antezana said.
Brazil has Amazon frontiers with Peru, Colombia and Bolivia that are virtually impossible to control. These are the world’s top three producers of coca leaves, the drug’s raw material, and cocaine itself.
Anti-narcotics forces have tried to deal a blow to drug gangs before the football tournament starts, seizing 570 kilos of cocaine destined for Brazilian cities hosting games.
In the Peruvian border region of Ucayali, 18 labs with a weekly output of 400 kilos of cocaine paste, a precursor of the white powder that people snort, have been destroyed recently.
As part of wide-ranging World Cup security measures, Brazil’s defense ministry last month launched an operation to try to keep cocaine out of the country.
Military forces were posted along 17,000 kilometers of borders, and some 40 tons of drugs destined for Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were confiscated.
– Rising prices-
But the financial incentive is overpowering.
“In Peru, a kilo of cocaine can cost $1,000 but in Manaus (Brazil), the same amount goes for $5,000 and in Sao Paulo, it’s $7,000,” said Romero.
DIRANDRO, the Peruvian anti-drug agency, says a load of 300 kilos of cocaine worth an estimated $300,000 in Peru can go for as much as $3 million in Rio.
“Prices are exorbitant because the growth in demand is exponential,” said Antezana.
In recent years, the flow of Peruvian cocaine has shifted direction. Until 2010, it was essentially shipped by sea to Asia and the United States.
Today, 60 percent of the cocaine made in Peru goes to Brazil via Bolivia and the Amazon rain forest, through the Peruvian regions of Loreto and Ucayali. That uncontrolled corridor is a cake walk for traffickers, specialists say.
The recent arrest of Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman — who led the powerful Sinaloa cartel — has consolidated this trend, as has the re-directing of cocaine toward Brazil under the influence of a rising and powerful Brazilian drug gang called the Capital’s First Commando, said Antezana.
Moreover, drug traffickers take advantage of the proximity of Bolivia to Brazil not just to ship more drugs, but also to make more.
Since the US Drug Enforcement Administration was expelled from Bolivia in 2008, the country has “lost ground in the area of logistics and intelligence,” said Franklin Alcaraz, head of CELIN, a non-governmental organization focused on drug issues in La Paz.
“Despite the government’s efforts, there are not enough resources and drug trafficking keeps on growing” in Bolivia, he said.