La captura del Estado peruano por el narcotráfico: el caso de los “cuello blanco del puerto”

Abstract

Since the 1980s, Peru has been a key player in the international drug trafficking scenario. The second largest producer of cocaine in the world and one of the countries where the main input, the coca leaf, is grown, the port of El Callao, being one of the main ports in Latin America due to its volume, is presumed to be where important cargoes of this drug leave from. The interception of communications in 2018 to investigate the violent organized crime that was taking place in that province revealed a network of judges, prosecutors, congressmen, and businessmen who were collaborating with drug traffickers, favoring them with impunity. This is not the first attempt to capture the Peruvian State for drug trafficking. In the 1990s, the government of Fujimori-Montesinos used drug trafficking money -among others- to bribe the country's highest authorities: military chiefs, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, the media, and businessmen, all of whom were close to the government. The "narco-indulgence" of Alan García's second administration is another symptom of the seriousness of the collaboration of authorities from the highest spheres of the State with the powerful drug traffickers. The "double standard" of the Peruvian Criminal Policy against international drug trafficking is made evident, strong for the weak and weak for the strong: high penalties for small-scale traffickers and impunity for those at the apex of the criminal organizations. In addition, the enormous corrupting capacity of money from drug trafficking (money laundering) to capture members of the powers of the State: Executive, Legislative and Judicial, is of concern. The "case of the white collars of the port" is an empirical example of the intersection of judicial corruption -and its minions- within the Peruvian State and the organized crime criminal organizations. In order to conjure up these alliances, it is necessary to emphasize the punishment against the white-collar criminals of drug trafficking and their collaborators: lawyers, judges, prosecutors, etc., who use their profession as a cover to enrich themselves personally to the detriment of the common good.