Fight Breaks Out After Pair Who Were 'Like Brothers' Reportedly Took Psychedelic Drug Ayahuasca A spiritual retreat in Peru turned deadly when a 29-year-old Canadian allegedly stabbed a British man after the pair took a hallucinogenic brew. Local police allege Canadian Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens killed Unais Gomes, 26, after Gomes attacked him with a knife Wednesday night. The incident occurred during a retreat near the city of Iquitos in the Peruvian jungle where the pair - who were reportedly "like brothers" - both ingested ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic drug also known as "the vine of the soul." [continues 615 words]
LIMA, Peru - An Organization of American States study commissioned in response to calls by some Latin American leaders for rethinking the war on drugs advocates serious discussion of legalizing marijuana. "Sooner or later decisions in this area will need to be taken," the study released Friday says, although it makes no proposals or specific recommendations on any issue. The $2.2 million study also notes that "no significant support" was found among any of its 35 member nations for the "decriminalization or legalization of the trafficking of other illicit drugs," including cocaine, which most directly affects the region. [continues 92 words]
LIMA, Peru Peru's struggle with a resurgent cocaine trade is in the spotlight as it hosts nearly 60 nations in a conference on illicit drugs beginning Monday. The Andean country's cocaine production likely now exceeds Colombia's, making it the world's No. 1 source of the illicit drug, the United States and United Nations say. President Ollanta Humala said when he took office a year ago that he'd make the drug war a priority, and his government announced an ambitious anti-narcotics plan in March. [continues 406 words]
But new techniques have given this Ticuna Indian village near the banks of the Amazon River in Peru a surprising distinction in the global drug trade: It is now home to some of the world's fastest expanding plantations of coca, the raw material in cocaine. The United Nations' annual drug report, to be published Tuesday, is expected to document the big changes in the global cocaine business that are helping drive coca cultivation and cocaine consumption deep into Peru's Amazon near its border with Brazil. [continues 1936 words]
TINGO MARIA, Peru -- Coca cultivation is surging once again in this country's remote tropical valleys, part of a major repositioning of the Andean drug trade that is making Peru a contender to surpass Colombia as the world's largest exporter of cocaine. Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking rings are expanding their reach in Peru, where two factions of Shining Path guerrillas are already competing for control of the cocaine trade. The traffickers -- fortified by the resilient demand for cocaine in the United States, Brazil and parts of Europe -- are stymieing efforts to combat the drug's resurgence here and raising the specter of greater violence in a nation still haunted by years of war. [continues 978 words]
LIMA, Peru--Surging cocaine production is rattling Peru after years of relative calm, raising fears that the associated increase in violence and corruption could derail one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America. The cultivation of coca, and the capacity to make cocaine from it, have been steadily rising in Peru, while neighboring Colombia has been aggressively cracking down on production. Peruvian cocaine exports, according to one study, have overtaken those from Colombia, though Colombia remains the world's leader in cocaine production. [continues 631 words]
After a lull, production is rising, feeding demand in Brazil, Europe and East Asia, officials say. With flashy cartel men replaced by a piecemeal network, the trafficking is harder to combat. SANTA LUCIA, PERU -- Rustic mule trains ferry vital chemicals to clandestine jungle labs. Booby-trapped fields ward off intruders. Trekkers never seen on the Discovery Channel backpack the prized finished product on epic journeys from steamy Amazon hideaways to chilly highland distribution depots. And a shadowy remnant of the notorious Shining Path rebel army, led by a charismatic man named Artemio, uses its muscle to pocket a fortune in a sinister protection racket. [continues 1380 words]
Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers are importing a far more brutal operating style to Peru, say authorities. This message chilled Sonia Medina the most: "Listen, we know who your daughter is," the anonymous threat came via text message over her cellphone. "And we think she is good-looking." As Peru's top drug prosecutor, Ms. Medina, a former judge who stands just 5 feet tall, is confronting the nation's increasingly violent drug-trafficking problem head on. She is whisked around by bodyguards - - sometimes one, sometimes three - and never rides in a car without tinted windows. [continues 1062 words]
LIMA, Peru - He was a strapping and fearless reporter originally from Tallahassee who wanted to earn his stripes to become a foreign correspondent. So Todd Smith headed to the drug-trafficking hub of Uchiza in central Peru and photographed the small planes loaded with semi-refined cocaine bound for Colombia. Smith did not leave Uchiza alive. His body, tortured and with a sign denouncing him as a U.S. undercover agent, was found in a Uchiza playground on Nov. 21, 1989. He was 28 years old and worked for the Tampa Tribune. He is the only U.S. reporter who has been killed while covering Peru's drug trade. [continues 669 words]
Tribune Journalist Was Abducted There Peru's president has promised to try to reopen the investigation into the 1989 slaying of Tampa Tribune reporter Todd C. Smith. Alan Garcia's pledge followed a meeting with U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson on Thursday and came without reporters' prompting at a subsequent news conference in Lima, Peru's capital. "We'll work with the justice system to bring to light the truth and so at least his parents will have the consolation of knowing the truth," Garcia told reporters. [continues 358 words]
A New Program Aims To Help Coca Growers Raise Paiche, A Huge, Endangered Fish Known For Its Flaky Meat. Pucallpa, Peru -- Teofilo Tapullima knows first hand the dangers that lurk beneath the muddy waters of Peru's Amazon jungle: Piranhas, fresh-water rays, and the giant paiche fish, to name a few. He recently found out just how tricky a paiche can be when he had to net one at the research institute where he works outside Pucallpa, in northern Peru. [continues 1035 words]
Peru's president is promoting the virtues of legal coca, but the country's defense minister said Wednesday that Peru remains committed to eradicating the illegal portion of the crop that is the raw material for cocaine. "Should illegal coca leaf crops disappear? There is no doubt. That is the objective," Defense Minister Allan Wagner told Radioprogramas radio. "How to achieve that requires a lot of intelligence and political sensitivity to know how this can truly advance." Eradication is a touchy -- and deadly -- issue in Peru, the world's second-largest producer of cocaine after Colombia. [continues 334 words]
LIMA, Peru -- The polls have closed and the ballot count is underway. But Peruvians will have to wait at least a month until they know who will be their next president. With more than 80% of the votes tallied Monday, Ollanta Humala, 43, a retired army officer supported by many of the country's indigenous and mixed-race poor, led with 30.3%, Peru's election authority said. Alan Garcia, 56, a center-left former president, was second with 24.9%. Conservative congresswoman Lourdes Flores, 46, was close with 24%. No candidate had the majority needed for an outright victory. A runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held in late May or early June. [continues 241 words]
Runoff for Top 2 Vote-Getters Likely in May LIMA, Peru -- Peruvians headed to the polls Sunday in presidential elections that pitted a populist military man against a hard-talking congresswoman and a former president who left the country in shambles 20 years ago. Political newcomer Ollanta Humala, 43, a retired lieutenant colonel with support among the country's Indian and mixed-race poor, held a narrow lead, according to early election results. No candidate was likely to win a majority in Sunday balloting, meaning Peru would need to conduct a runoff between the top two vote-getters next month. A poll Saturday by local polling firm Apoyo showed 27% of Peruvians backing Humala. Lourdes Flores and Alan Garcia were tied for second place with 23%. [continues 474 words]
Any unannounced 'gringo' visitor to this tiny village is a dead man. As endless coca fields spread into the forests of Peru's Apurimac jungle, mountains of coca leaves dry in the sun of Llaruri's dirt streets, at the heart of one of the world's largest cocaine-producing areas. 'Last time, I came here with a Canadian engineer and coca farmers thought we wanted to eradicate their crops, so they blocked the road, drove us away at gunpoint and threatened to shoot us,' said my driver as we approached the village. 'A local teacher saved us at the last minute by suggesting that they should check our identities first.' [continues 720 words]
LIMA, Peru -- If Ollanta Humala, a retired army officer with no governing experience, wins Sunday's presidential election, he may become the South American leader who most worries Washington. "He falls in the same league" as Latin America's two left-leaning leaders: Venezuela's Hugo Chvez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, says Dennis Jett, U.S. ambassador to Peru from 1996 to 1999. "He is just as wacky as Chvez and Morales, and perhaps more unpredictable, because, basically, his only experience is an attempted coup d'etat and as a human rights abuser." [continues 481 words]
Front-Runner Could Be the Latest Unorthodox South American Leader In most professions, reaching the top requires a stellar track record of experience and achievement. But in Latin American politics, a barren resume can serve as a ticket to the presidential palace. The latest example may turn out to be Ollanta Humala, the front-runner heading into Peru's April 9 presidential election who is waging his first political campaign. A former lieutenant colonel, Humala led a failed military uprising in 2000 but was otherwise unknown to most Peruvians until just a few months ago. Yet Humala paints his inexperience as an endowment. [continues 1716 words]
Peru's brutal rebel movement, the Shining Path, long thought to be all but extinct, is on the warpath again, boosted by an alliance with drug traffickers. Its Maoist guerrillas almost vanished after the capture of their founder and leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1993, with only a few hundred left sheltering in remote highlands. But those mountains are now the setting for a dramatic growth in cultivating coca to produce cocaine, and veteran fighters are now serving new masters, the drug barons. [continues 313 words]
Coca Leaves Are Not Cocaine Leaving Listuguj and Campbellton for a journey to South America is always exciting, as is coming back. With a grant from the Quebec Art Council, I went to Peru to do a research about coca leaves, a plant that Andean people have used for more than 5,000 years. They call it Mama-Coca or Mother-Coca and I brought three leaves with me. Arriving at the Montreal airport, the custom officer was unequivcal. "There are drugs and we have zero tolerance for drugs," she said before seizing the leaves. [continues 1474 words]
LIMA - Fifteen years ago, Florida journalist Todd Smith was slain after he ventured into Peru's jungle to investigate links between Shining Path guerrillas and the cocaine trade. At the time, Peru's Interior Ministry said the 28-year-old Tampa Tribune reporter had been captured by the Maoist rebels and possibly sold to drug traffickers for $30,000, the bounty then offered for anyone suspected of being a U.S. drug enforcement agent. A secret counterterrorism court in April 1993 sentenced Shining Path guerrilla Jose Manrique to 30 years in prison for taking part in the murder. [continues 734 words]
Assets Frozen: Peruvian Businessman Says Rivals Are Trying To Ruin His Name LIMA - One of Peru's top businessmen has challenged the United States to start legal proceedings against him in U.S. courts after the White House placed him on its list of overseas drug kingpins. "I'm sending a letter to the President of the United States asking that they open a trial in the United States so that I can present my case and the American justice system can decide if I am guilty or innocent," said Fernando Zevallos, founder of Aero Continente, Peru's largest airline, who also faces legal proceedings in Peruvian courts. [continues 618 words]
LIMA (AP)--About 3,000 rural coca growers marched peacefully into Lima on Monday to demand the government stop programs to eradicate their cocaine-producing crop and release of one of their leaders. Protest leader Nancy Obregon told The Associated Press that the coca farmers would remain in the capital "until they solve our problems." Obregon said coca farmers want to speak with Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero and legislators about a law that would protect coca cultivation. They also want to meet with judiciary officials to discuss the release of one of their leaders, Nelson Palomino, who has been jailed for more than a year on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda. [continues 279 words]
LIMA (AP) - It looks and tastes pretty much like the many brands of bottled iced tea that line American supermarket shelves - just don't drink it before a drug test. Kdrink is one of two new bottled beverages to hit Peruvian stores this year using a formula made from coca leaves, the base ingredient in cocaine. Each bottle of Kdrink contains a trace 0.6 milligrams of the outlawed stimulant. Although that amount of natural, unprocessed cocaine carries less kick than a cup of coffee, it is enough to create a legal headache for exporters. With the notable exception of Coca-Cola, products using coca leaves are banned in most countries beyond the Andes by strict U.S. and UN import regulations. [continues 661 words]
Lima, March 19: The Internet and cellular telephones are making drug traffickers harder than ever to catch and the job will only become more difficult as technology develops, a US anti-drug official said on Thursday. Messages in Internet chat rooms, where drug smugglers in Latin America can arrange cocaine deliveries in London or Berlin, are almost impossible to intercept and cellular phone text messages cannot be tracked by authorities, Mark Malcolm, intelligence analyst at the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, told an international drug conference in Lima. [continues 263 words]
Peruvian coca growers are meeting in the capital Lima to discuss ways to confront the government over their controversial crop. Farmers are angry that politicians have failed to come up with a financially viable alternative to the crop, which is the raw material for cocaine. The coca growers have travelled long distances from remote areas of the Andes and Amazon to voice their anger. Peru is the second biggest producer of cocaine in the world. Legal Use Much of it is smuggled to the United States - though a small amount is used legally, brewed in tea or chewed to combat altitude sickness. [continues 114 words]
LIMA (AP)--Unidentified assailants brutally beat a U.S. journalist investigating the eradication of cocaine-producing coca shrubs in the Peruvian jungle, the foreign press club said Wednesday. Sharon Stevenson, a freelance correspondent who has worked for Newsweek magazine, Voice of America and CNN, was suffering from amnesia but was in stable condition and was expected to make a slow recovery, said Mary Powers, president of the Foreign Press Association of Peru. Stevenson, 57, was beaten and strangled on Dec. 10 after she went to meet with sources. [continues 184 words]
LIMA -- Peruvian and U.S. antinarcotics officials said the cultivation of coca leaves used to make cocaine has dropped in Peru. After reporting a slight increase in overall acreage last year, Peru's counter drug agency Devida said that 21,140 acres of coca had been destroyed -- beating a U.S.-approved goal of nearly 20,000 acres this year. Also this week, the U.S. government said that Peru had slashed the total amount of coca being grown from 91,500 acres at the end of 2002 to 77,875 acres by June. [end]
WASHINGTON -- Ronald Reagan is generally recognized as the original "Teflon president." No matter what went wrong during his two-term presidency in the '80s, whether outside his control or not, he remained popular -- no allegation or bad news seemed to stick to him, as if he were treated with a non-stick coating. In Latin America, where growing disaffection toward democracy is further eroding public confidence in politicians, a new kind of Teflon presidency has emerged. Today, it is best personified by President Alejandro Toledo of Peru, but with a somewhat cruel twist: For Toledo, not even the best of news sticks. [continues 715 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, Peru -- Darkness had descended outside, and a bare light bulb illuminated Mayor Teofilo Torres in his office here as he explained the danger posed by the reemergence of the Shining Path guerrillas deep in the Peruvian jungle. "Shining Path could enter San Francisco at any time and shoot me," Torres said. "They look for the mayors first." A decade after the Shining Path was believed to have been vanquished, the guerrillas -- known in Peru by their Spanish name, Sendero Luminoso -- are making a comeback in a potentially dangerous alliance with traffickers of coca paste, the basic ingredient of cocaine, in a remote mountainous region with little civil authority. [continues 1026 words]
AGUAYTIA, Peru - Imagine being sent to war by generals who are unable to agree on the enemy's strength or where to fight. That's the case in the war on drugs in Peru, where the United States is spending more than $140 million this year to eradicate coca, the raw material from which cocaine is made, and to provide alternative crops to the desperately poor coca farmers known as cocaleros. How big is the problem? The best guesses differ wildly. [continues 739 words]
AGUAYTIA, Peru - Imagine being sent to war by generals who are unable to agree on the enemy's strength or where to fight. That's the case in the war on drugs in Peru, where the United States is spending more than $140 million this year to eradicate coca, the raw material from which cocaine is made, and to provide alternative crops to the desperately poor coca farmers known as cocaleros. How big is the problem? The best guesses differ wildly. [continues 814 words]
As U.S. Cracks Down In Colombia, It Seems Coca Production Is Shifting AGUAYTIA, Peru - Alarmed by evidence that drug trafficking is on the rise in Peru, the Bush administration expects controversial antinarcotics air-interdiction flights to resume in the Andean nation by the end of this year. "We are seeing a large increase in the number of people clearing out old coca fields, and getting back into it," explained a senior U.S. official in Peru who is familiar with antinarcotics efforts there. His agency doesn't permit him to be named. [continues 533 words]
U.S. Supporting Effort By Training The Pilots AGUAYTIA, Peru -- Alarmed by evidence that drug trafficking is on the rise in Peru, the Bush administration expects controversial anti-narcotics air-interdiction flights to resume in the Andean nation by the end of this year. "We are seeing a large increase in the number of people clearing out old coca fields and getting back into it," said a senior U.S. official in Peru who is familiar with anti-narcotics efforts there. His agency doesn't permit him to be named. [continues 512 words]
LIMA (AP)--Cultivation of coca plants rose by 1.1% in Peru last year, according to a joint U.N.-Peruvian government report, and Peru's anti-drug czar called the increase "alarming." The survey, conducted by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime and Peru's government, said 115,400 acres of the coca - used to produce cocaine - were being grown by Peruvian growers at the end of 2002. That was up from 114,160 acres in 2001. "It is an alarming statistic," Nils Ericsson, the head of Peru's anti-drug agency Devida, said Thursday. "Peru maintains a worrisome second-place ranking among cocaine and coca producers worldwide." [continues 351 words]
Peruvian cocaleros (coca growers) and their sympathizers, who only last week hailed a meeting with President Alejandro Toledo and a resulting set of proposed agreements as a "partial victory," have seen their elation turn to ashes this week. Leaders of the Confederation of Peruvian Coca Growers (Confederacion Nacional de Productores Agropecuarios de las Cuencas Cocaleras del Peru, or CONCPACCP) had led thousands of cocaleros on a two-week march to Lima to protest forced eradication policies, corruption and debility in alternative development programs, and the arrest of imprisoned leader Nelson Palomino, thought they had won a victory after Toledo took an offering of coca leaf from them and pronounced it "sacred," but the accords they thought they had negotiated with the government did not appear in the Supreme Decree published by the government the following day. The discovery came only as the thousands of cocaleros were already on their way back to the coca fields of the Apurimac, the Ene and the Upper Huallaga river valleys. [continues 726 words]
In what local observers described as a "partial victory" and "relative triumph" for Peru's insurgent cocalero (coca farmer) movement, cocalero leaders met Wednesday with President Alejandro Toledo, who took some small steps to alleviate their plight and promised more. Since April 8, cocaleros from around the country had been marching on Lima to demand the government redress their grievances and the president meet with them personally. When thousands of cocaleros began pouring into the heart of the capital Monday, pressure began mounting on Toledo to heed the demand for a meeting, and by Wednesday, after preliminary meetings between cocalero leaders, Prime Minister Luis Solari, and Peruvian drug agency head Nils Ericsson, the long-awaited event took place. [continues 777 words]
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) Peruvian farmers who marched into Lima this week met with President Alejandro Toledo on Wednesday, presenting demands they hope will protect their coca crops, the raw material for cocaine, the government said. Coca farmers -- who launched a broad protest April 8 that has included strikes, blocked highways and a long march by foot and by truck to Lima -- were meeting with Toledo at his presidential palace, a palace official said. Peru is the world's No. 2 producer of coca, a leafy plant that many farmers chew to ward off fatigue or brew in tea, as well as make illegal cocaine, which is smuggled from Andean countries such as Peru and Colombia to consumers in rich nations. According to U.S. data, there are about 89,000 acres of coca in Peru, putting it second in coca cultivation after Colombia. [continues 287 words]
LIMA (AP)--Thousands of poor coca farmers converged on Lima Monday, demanding an end to restrictions on their cocaine-producing crop and the release of one of their prominent leaders. The farmers arrived in several groups, which began marching to Lima about 10 days ago from coca-growing mountainous jungle valleys to the northeast and southeast of the capital. Police arrested Nelson Palomino, head of a national organization of coca producers, on Feb. 20, days after farmers in several rural coca-growing regions began a 10-day protest of government plans to destroy coca bushes. [continues 295 words]
Thousands of poor coca farmers converged on the capital Monday, protesting for an end to restrictions on their cocaine-producing crop. The farmers began marching in several groups to Lima about 10 days ago from mountainous jungle valleys where the coca is harvested. They are also seeking the release of Nelson Palomino, head of a national organization of coca producers. He was arrested on Feb. 20, after farmers began protesting government plans to destroy coca plants. Police charge that he threatened farmers who refused to support him. [continues 133 words]
LIMA -- Thousands of Peruvian coca leaf farmers marched into Lima yesterday demanding the government halt plans to eradicate their cash crop, the raw ingredient of cocaine, and free their jailed leader. Men, women and children, who have traveled for over a week on foot from jungle areas where coca leaf is a staple crop, marched with flags and banners from the outskirts of Peru's sprawling capital toward the presidential palace. ''[We want] President Alejandro Toledo to listen to our demands and make good on his promises,'' Marisela Guillen, secretary general of the Agricultural Producers' Association of the Apurimac-Ene River Valleys, said. [continues 109 words]
U.S.-Sponsored Eradication Plans Spark Peasant Protests SAN FRANCISCO, Peru -- The mountain slopes that rise around this town in Peru's high eastern jungle were the site of a rare success story in the U.S. war on drugs. But the resilient Andean drug industry is flowing back into the Apurimac River Valley, testing a model partnership in Washington's increasingly aggressive counter-drug campaign. Once one of the world's largest sources of coca leaf, the valley was the focus of a U.S.-backed effort to intercept planes shuttling the key raw material in cocaine to processing laboratories in neighboring Colombia. Now U.S. eradication efforts in Colombia are squeezing the trade back toward Peru, causing deep social unrest, the threat of armed resistance to U.S. drug policy and political risks for a fragile Peruvian government responsible for implementing the most controversial elements of Washington's strategy. [continues 1130 words]
[Content not related to drug policy snipped for brevity] Peruvian Prime Minister Luis Solari blamed a growing drug trafficking problem in his country on the U.S. suspension of an aerial interception program two years ago, and called for the program to resume soon. The United States halted the program in April 2001 after the Peruvian air force accidentally shot down a small aircraft and killed a U.S. missionary and her daughter. The White House plans to resume the aerial interdiction program in a month or two in Colombia, according to a top official, but no date has been set for Peru. [end]
Rows of riot police guard a specially adapted courtroom at Lurigancho prison in the dismal outskirts of Peru's capital, Lima. The roof has been strengthened to resist mortar attack. The public galleries are bulletproof. And the man on trial - Vladimiro Montesinos, the shadowy national security adviser for disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori - has arrived wearing a bulletproof vest. So extensive was the web of corruption and secrecy woven by Mr Montesinos that prosecutors fear cronies may seek to free - or even kill - him. Nearly two years after Mr Montesinos' arrest and Mr Fujimori's departure into exile, their decade-long rule continues to haunt Peruvian society. [continues 671 words]
LIMA, Peru (AP) - Police arrested a prominent coca farming leader Friday as protests in rural Peru against the eradication of coca - the base ingredient in cocaine - moved into their fourth day. Police in the city of Ayacucho, 205 miles southeast of Lima, told The Associated Press that they arrested Nelson Palomino, head of the Apurimac River Valley Agricultural Producers Federation, for alleged "terrorist propagandizing." Hundreds of poor farmers in the jungle town of Aguaytia, 235 miles northeast of Lima, began blocking isolated highways on Tuesday in protest of government programs to destroy illegal coca crops. [continues 135 words]
LIMA -- A court has sentenced Peru's former attorney general - for years accused of protecting once-feared intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos - to 10 years in prison on corruption charges. In addition to the prison term, delivered late Thursday, the criminal court fined former Attorney General Nelida Colan the equivalent of $570,000. The court found Colan guilty of crimes related to receiving $10,000 a month from Montesinos, failing to show how she paid for a $750,000 house and shelving an investigation into a bribery case involving the ex-spy boss. [continues 171 words]
SAN FRANCISCO, Peru - Though only 250 miles from the Peruvian capital, this plunging jungle valley seems just out of the government's reach. Isolated, impoverished, and connected to the rest of the country by treacherous dirt roads cut into vertiginous mountain slopes, this lush region has for decades enticed drug traffickers and coca growers. Maoist Shining Path rebels arrived in the 1980s, feeding off the cocaine trade. The region's fiercely independent peasants then formed self-defense groups and drove the rebels back into the chilly highlands. [continues 1185 words]
Region With Lush Natural Beauty Also Proves Suited For Coca Crop, But A Decade Later The Land Is Unusable MONZON, Peru - Swaths of scarred earth blanket the hillsides of this jungle valley -- the environmental testament of a cocaine trade striving to meet demand in the United States and Europe. Some 5.7 million acres of Peruvian rain forest have been hacked down in the last three decades to grow coca, a shrub leaf that is the base ingredient of cocaine, experts estimate. More than 14,800 tons of toxic chemicals are dumped into the Amazon jungle every year as traffickers turn coca into raw cocaine paste. [continues 744 words]
Inside Peru
