Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jun 2002
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Associated Press
Author: Associated Press

PERU BREAKS UP DRUG TRAFFICKING RING

LIMA, Peru - Peruvian police said Monday they had broken up a major drug 
trafficking ring, seizing almost two tons of cocaine destined for the 
United States or Europe and arresting 27 people.

The gang was linked to Mexico's Tijuana cartel and had set up a fishing 
company in the Peruvian port of Chimbote as a front to smuggle the drugs to 
Mexico by sea and then on to Europe or the United States, Edy Tomasto, head 
of Peru's anti-drug police, told reporters.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Lima office helped with a 
three-month surveillance operation leading up to the bust, a police 
statement said.

Tomasto said police seized 3,870 pounds of refined cocaine in Chimbote, 
about 210 miles northwest of Lima, in the largest cocaine seizure in Peru 
so far this year.

He identified Miguel Morales, a Mexican, as the ring's leader. Morales, 10 
Colombians, 15 Peruvians and a Guatemalan were arrested in a series of 
raids in Chimbote, Lima, the northern coastal city of Trujillo and the 
central mountain city of Ayacucho. The arrests were made from Thursday to 
Saturday.

As he spoke, police officers unveiled several hundred packages of the 
confiscated cocaine wrapped tightly in brown packing tape and stored in sacks.

The cocaine was to be ferried on small boats from Chimbote to a larger ship 
off Peru's coast, Tomasto said. The larger ship was still at large.

Police also uncovered a processing laboratory in the Apurimac River valley, 
the region in Peru's eastern Amazon jungle where most of the raw coca leaf 
for the cocaine originated, Tomasto said.
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