Reality sets in for accused in Peru

MICHAELLA McCollum-Connolly and Melissa Reid, caught with a total of 11kg of cocaine hidden in their luggage at Lima airport, may have so far underestimated the situation they are in. They could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, and their claims of being forced into the crime will be scrutinised heavily.

In the video which emerged of the two girls being questioned, Reid can be heard saying: “I was forced to take this bag.” She also said she did not know it contained drugs.

Eduardo Castañeda, a counter-narcotics prosecutor, says those kinds of claims are generally false. “If you are trafficking drugs you are doing it for profit. The narcos [people involved in organised crime] want to use people who want to do it. It is for their own security. If they forced anyone, they would be putting themselves at risk.”

Colonel Roberto Reynoso, head of police investigators at the counter- narcotics police, Dirandro, where the girls are being held, says they are classic examples of burriers — drug mule. “They are young and naïve, they could have easily bought into a story about earning a lot of money quickly and easily.”

McCollum-Connolly and Reid are not alone. There are 6,000 women in Peruvian prisons, 90% of whom are in for drug-related offences.

“We have seen a feminisation of drug mules in Peru,” says Ricardo Soberon, former head of Devida, the government’s anti-drugs agency. “Organised crime groups have moved from using planes or shipments for transportation to drug mules who carry lesser quantities.”

Organised crime groups increasingly target women because of their psychological characteristics. “They are easier to manipulate — especially if they are drug addicts,” says Soberon.

But according to anti-drug prosecutor Castañeda it is not easy to get past the security checks. For the past 10 years Peru has been implementing various techniques in detecting drug mules, including sniffer dogs; specialised technology for cocaine detection; and psychological indicators: “The way people walk, look around and behave can be telling,” says Castañeda.

Undercover police officers at the check-in area were keeping a lookout for people with specific profiles of drug mules when they spotted the girls. People they often look out for are travellers with brand new bags, indicating they haven’t travelled around much; people who arrive at check-in at the last minute so they don’t have to wait in line; and people who look around a lot or get nervous when asked questions.

“Criminal organisations often use some drug mules as distractions for police, sniffer dogs, and customs” says Soberon. “An informant from the crime group will call the police to say a certain person is carrying drugs, they will describe the person and the bag. The police intervene and get to boast that they caught a drug mule while another mule with a much larger amount of drugs can pass by undetected.”

A commander who has dealt with hundreds of foreigners at the Lima airport says the flights bound to Spain are most notorious: “That is where a lot of the drugs goes.”

McCollum-Connolly and Reid will first be transferred to the Santa Monica women’s prison in Chorrillos — a poor neighbourhood of Lima.

According to statistics from Dec 2012, there are 32 British nationals in Peruvian prisons, of whom three are women. So far 22 men have been sentenced and one woman — the rest are awaiting a verdict. In Peru it may take up to three years for the girls to receive their sentence.

If they confess to their crimes, they will receive their sentence within six months, after which they would be transferred to the more modern prison in Ancon, which is where most foreign prisoners end up.

The Santa Monica women’s prison is relatively mild compared to other women’s prisons around Lima; the maximum security prison in Chorrillos and the Virgen the Fatima Prison inside the city and the women’s prison in Ancon just to the north of Lima. In Oct 2012 the redistribution of women inside the three prisons resulted in mixing maximum and minimum security inmates. A total of 750 women were transferred unannounced — 107 of them were foreigners. According to a 28-year-old Australian national, the transfers occurred brutally in the middle of the night and many personal belongings were left behind.

Inside the Santa Monica prison, inmates pay for their own food, clothes, and — if they can afford it — a living space. The prison is 70% overcrowded and the conditions of the cells are deplorable, with many women sleeping on filthy floors.

But comfort can be bought.

Guards are paid so little they often work several jobs on the side. “It makes them vulnerable for bribes,” says Soberon.

Poor inmates hustle for money in different ways — some by cooking or selling handicrafts, others by serving as a llamadora or caller on visiting days. Visitors rely on these callers to bring them to their loved one once they enter the visitors’ courtyard. But the most well-behaved and highly-educated prisoners work inside the prison library, and try to keep to themselves. Some of them claim they were set up and wrongly convicted of serious crimes such as murder.

Peru has been under foreign pressure to crack down on drugs, and after Peru’s 2003 drug law reform, penalties against offences such as those Reid and McCollum-Connolly are accused of have gone up. “Judges who punish harshly are applauded in Peru,” says Ricardo Soberon, who heads the centre of drug and human rights investigations in Peru.

The two girls will likely be discriminated against for their relative wealth compared to Peruvian inmates and guards. Soberon adds that the girls need to be careful not to be exploited. “It is common for Peruvian lawyers to ask families for a lot of money promising a lesser sentence. But they know this is not going to happen.”