NARCO-TERRORISM AND ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFICKING IN PERU: A PROBLEM WITH DIFFICULT SOLUTION.

October 19, 2023

NARCO-TERRORISM AND ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFICKING IN PERU: A PROBLEM WITH DIFFICULT SOLUTION.

(Paredes, 2022:p94-111)

The problems related to the production, trafficking and consumption of drugs in Peru, especially basic paste and cocaine hydrochloride, generated by the illegal production of coca leaves are affecting the quality of life of the population, it is problematic. associated with problems of social exclusion, social vulnerability and institutional weakening, corrupting governance in Peru, generating greater insecurity and violence in society, due to the link between drug trafficking and Shining Path terrorism, posing a threat to national security. Based on this, the general objectives set out in this study were to describe the main characteristics of Illicit Drug Trafficking in Peru and the causes that generate it, and on the other hand, to explore the relationship between the New Shining Path with the Drug trafficking in Peru. To meet these objectives, a mixed research design was proposed, analyzing statistical data and also analyzing different bibliographic documents. The conclusions that emerge from the analysis are various, but the most important is that the alliance of the New Shining Path with drug trafficking is confirmed, transforming itself into a Narco Terrorist organization that operates in the VRAEM area and has become a threat to National Security.

Fueled by drug trafficking as the main activity linked to the global economy, in the districts, provinces and regions of the Peruvian high jungle, coca production and its transformation into cocaine becomes a modus vivendi typical of the area. This author makes it clear that the TID in its different modalities is a form of incorporation of vast sectors of Peruvian society to the free market economy. In the process, it becomes a form of social inclusion of marginal sectors of society.

According to the Financial Intelligence Unit of Peru, money laundering has increased of money in dubious investments such as gambling and the activity of construction in cities such as Lima or spas in Trujillo and Chiclayo, among others, as well as the need to generate a greater informal or illegal workforce. Finally, We can also add that in recent years, in the case of Peru, there has been a fragmentation and compartmentalization of collection, transformation, and transportation services and storage of the drug, as mentioned by Soberón (2014), since its departure from the pools maceration/laboratories until before leaving Peruvian territory through the borders or coast. Drug trafficking, in its modern form of operation in the country, reduces the areas of coca cultivation and various routes and forms of transportation are used to distract the police; In general, small/medium is preferred to reduce the risks of interdiction by police/military.

TID is a problem that grows in greater proportion every day and affects almost all the areas and activities of what is national, Peru, like very few, has the great problem of facing the fight in all phases of the TID: production, elaboration, marketing and consumption. Let's keep in mind that the TID moves close to 500,000 million dollars annually from illegal coca trafficking, as mentioned in said author. In this way, it seemed pertinent to me to clarify that drug trafficking is understood as a widely used concept and has different meanings. For some authors the drug trafficking activities are reduced to “trafficking of illegal drugs that are transported clandestinely from one place to another” (Contreras, 2010), a definition that is part of what Strictly operational. Other authors conceive drug trafficking as an activity of greater complexity that is essentially constituted as a power structure that establishes relationships of influence in spaces of political, economic and social decisions generating, with other phenomena of organized crime, destabilizing processes (Fernández, 2001:p15)