Inside DEA

Our next major operation was bolder yet, targeting a small pueblo’s actual airstrip far from the relative safety of Santa Lucia and government protection. The PNP had a reliable informant provide information that this strip was very active at night, and that local authorities had been coerced by the guerrilla-backed traffickers into providing security and arms for this enterprise. We targeted the strip for over-flight surveillance, and the tapes corroborated large twins coming in at night several times a week to an airfield lit by oil lamps. Even more troublesome was evidence of vehicular traffic to and from the strip during these times from a nearby governmental compound, confirming the probable involvement of the military. Our entire Snowcap team deployed with the PNP on this well-planned mission, giving us a total strength of more than thirty men. We were inserted by helicopter in late afternoon into a jungle clearing, located behind a mountain range and about eight miles distant from the targeted pueblo. That entire night was spent moving as quietly as that large of a force allowed, along trails and dirt roads, guided by the informant. Several peasants encountered along the way were pressed into service to assist in carrying equipment, and to prevent them from sounding an alert. Just before dawn we had reached the staging area near the airfield where we believed the cocaine was being stored prior to shipment. As we moved cautiously along a dirt track toward a cluster of buildings, a small pickup truck approached from the main road with four men (all found to be armed) visible in the bed, sitting amongst what turned out to be five of the familiar one-hundred-ten-pound sacks containing 50 kg of cocaine base each. As they drew nearer I braced myself for what I believed would be the inevitable volley of shots from the PNP, and was amazed as the well-disciplined Policia simply and quietly swarmed the truck as it slowly negotiated the rough track. We secured the truck and pressed on to the nearby building cluster, discovering it to be guarded by a sole ciudadano, and inside was a stack of another twenty sacks (110 lbs each) of cocaine, these emblazoned with the letters “U.S.A.” on the sides in white paint… their ultimate destination clearly marked. In all, six men were arrested, armed with weapons that included a pistol, a sawed-off shotgun, two automatic rifles, and three hand grenades. An M-16 rifle and the grenades were clearly government issued, and one of the prisoners turned out to be a Peruvian soldier in civilian clothes. He subsequently related that grenades could be purchased for $15 each from the local military. The following morning, we moved the defendants, cocaine, and weapons to the nearby local airfield for extraction. Ironically, this was the same airfield that had been secretly filmed at night, as twin-engine Colombian aircraft landed and took off with five hundred kg of cocaine within a fifteen minute time span. All told, approximately 1,250 kg of cocaine had been seized in this single raid, roughly three trafficker plane loads. The local militia sallied forth from their garrison for ritualistic glad-handing and offering meaningless compliment for a job well done. It’s not hard to understand how a small military garrison can be co-opted. In an isolated community like this they are a long way from real governmental authority, outnumbered, and easily overwhelmed by those that would do them harm if they did not comply with trafficker or guerilla demands. There is safety in numbers, and the loyalty of the PNP (as with the UMOPAR in Bolivia) is no doubt attributable to their not being locally recruited, and living together within the safe confines of a reinforced military base. A consistent presence of their American counterparts certainly helps. Even so, the pervasive threat of the Sendero Luminoso encouraged most PNP officials to wear a ski mask during operations to conceal their identity, and they all are referred to only by their claves (nicknames) as a measure of protecting themselves and their families from retaliation.