The Peruvian connection

LA Times:

It seemed a sweet deal: A free vacation to South America. All expenses paid, and a hefty cash bonus. Just bring a parcel back home to Europe.

"I thought I had no worries," said Vera Scheerstra, recalling when her boyfriend in the Netherlands suggested the trip. "I was stupid -- and in love, I guess."

For the Dutchwoman, it has turned into a life-transforming experience -- but not in any constructive sense.

Scheerstra is among scores of Europeans now in Peruvian jails on charges of attempting to smuggle cocaine out of Lima's airport. They are known as burriers, a fusion of "courier" and "burro."

Many, such as Scheerstra, languish in jail for years awaiting trial as their cases proceed tortuously through Peru's courts. Scheerstra and her boyfriend were caught in October 2005 with 16 kilos, about 35 pounds, of cocaine in suitcases.

She, like others interviewed in jail here, say they have acknowledged responsibility to Peruvian authorities for the smuggling attempts. Now they are working through the courts to expedite release after a minimum of two years in jail.

Already, Scheerstra has lost more than 2 1/2 years in the lives of her two sons,now 3 and 5 and living with friends back in the Netherlands. Her father, a lawyer and former suburban mayor outside Rotterdam, has cut off contact with his prodigal daughter.

"My entire family has suffered for my mistake," said Scheerstra, 33, a former special-ed teacher, speaking in a yard at the cramped Santa Monica women's prison in the capital's seaside Chorrillos district. "It was the stupidest thing I ever did."

Traffickers use land, sea and air to move their cocaine out of Peru, the world's No. 2 producer, after neighboring Colombia.

Big loads are sent out as cargo via ship, car, truck and aircraft, packed in bricks, dissolved in liquids and concealed in practically anything that's shipped -- tins of tuna, hollowed-out timber, plastic avocados; packages of nuts, door hinges or fertilizer.

River skiffs move bundles via porous jungle frontiers with Brazil. Recruits carry the loads overland to neighboring Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador for transshipment to the West.

But traffickers are always seeking new ways to move their prized product.

Many departing Peru on commercial flights are young Western tourists heading back to Europe, where cocaine brings a premium. An underground network recruits them -- in European cafes, on college campuses, in clubs and even in coded newspaper adds.

"They might approach you in a bar at night, or at the university," said Elena Santos, 24, of Madrid, among the large contingent of jailed Spanish burriers. "They say it's easy, you can make good money."

The pledged remuneration may vary, but 5,000 euros (about $7,885) per kilo of cocaine is typical.

Traffickers help burriers conceal drugs stashed in checked luggage, taped to torsos, inserted into body cavities, swallowed in latex balls -- a potentially fatal technique, should a capsule rupture. Most burriers are Latin American. But a significant number are Europeans and some Americans, all supposedly inconspicuous because of their looks and passports.

But Peruvian authorities are onto them.

...

I think these people know what they are doing, they just do not know they are going to get caught. I was not aware that Peru was that big a producer. It does appear that the government is attempting to apply the rule of law. Europeans will eventually wise up to this scam, but the producers will continue to try to find ways to transport their coke.