The Underworld Podcast - Peru's Shining Path Narco Terrorists: From Commie Civil War to Cartel Muscle

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Peru’s Shining Path, a Marxist-Maoist guerrilla force, plunged the Andean nation into a two-decade civil war that put villagers of the VRAEM, a remote, coca-producing region, on its bloody frontline. The Peruvian government captured the movement’s despotic leader, and the war died. But the rebels switched gears, protecting coca shipments from Peru’s interior to its coast, and out across Latin America. Today the VRAEM is the global trade’s ground zero — even for the leaves that make their way, via an odd, winding journey, into Coca-Cola bottles worldwide. And the Shining Path, though weakened, are still among the embattled region’s biggest players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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in its Spanish acronym, is no place for sentimentality. The size of Ireland, most of its 400,000 inhabitants rely on one crop for their life. heavyhoods. The Inca's called coca leaves divine, and chewed or drank as a tea, they've been used to relieve altitude sickness or as a stimulant for over 8,000 years. But since the mid-1800s, coca leaves have also been used to produce one of the world's most popular illegal drugs. I think you can guess which one. And for years, coca farmers in the Vreim have increasingly sold their product to cartels, whose clandestine labs, mule tracks, and and landing strips litter the jungle like a vascular system, breathing life into the world's

most lucrative black market. This market even has its own haul of mirrors in Catrail, armies of so-called motilleros or backpackers who haul kilos of raw product from the Vrym to the coast, where it's loaded and shipped abroad for colossal profit. Not coincidentally, since 1980, the Vrym has also been the home of the Sendero Luminoso. The Shining Path, which sounds like a friendly neighbourhood tarmacking firm, but is actually an ultra-left guerrilla force led by a straggled-bearded Maoist college professor. For 20 years, The Shining Path had led a brutal campaign against the Peruvian government,

lost, then splintered into various factions, maintaining its promise at various stages to topple the state in Lima and the entire capitalist system. But in more recent years, Shining Path Rebels have made bank protecting vast shipments of cocaine, produced in the jungle and spirited out of Peru via dirt track or plane. And this is billions of dollars of blow.

A 2021 report says almost 70% of Peruvian Coke comes from the Vryme and it's the biggest producer of the drug on the planet. Since the war, villages in the Vryme have faced violence from the state and the Shining Path. And now the rebels are in the pockets of narcos.

They come under intense pressure. Even more so when that year, the daughter of the president who won Peru's war against the Shining Path runs for office. Leafless handed around the rhyme, warned that anybody who votes for her will be considered the traitor. Beware, quote, degenerate homosexuals, they add,

saying that brothels will be, quote, cleansed. Long-lived Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, the leaflets read. principally Maoism. Perhaps the villagers fought back. Perhaps they refused to be cowed by the leaflets or simply tore them up. Whatever happened and will likely never know, the guerrillas respond with hellfire, shooting dead 16 villages, including two children, in two bars on the banks of a skinny river. Some of the bodies have been burned. Peru's government calls the massacre a quote, act of genocide. There is no other force that has the capacity to carry out such an attack in this area but the Shining Path, says a reporter on the scene the following day.

Lima dispatches terror cops to the region. The country reels in horror, if not complete shock. Such bloodshed has become a calling card of the Shining Path since its remnants hooked up with some of the world's most powerful cartels. This is an act of desperation, says one security expert, by a weakened group trying to send a message. That message has been well and truly sent. Welcome to the Underworld podcast.

Hello and welcome to the weekly audio experience where two journalists who've reported all kinds of baddies, wax, Wayne and wine about the state of global moral decay, crime and, of course, the media industry. I'm Sean Williams in Wellington, El Tiro, New Zealand. I hope I get through this episode without any earthquakes because, yeah, I've got a lot of them lately. I actually had to get under a table before we recorded the last one, which is a lot. Fine. And I'm joined today by Danny Gold in New York City, which isn't on any tectonic fault lines,

but my God, quite a few political ones. Am I right? You're off to Japan in a few short days, mate. A few packed your bags. And did you figure out your safe word yet? Because she isn't going to stop until you say it. You know that right. Wow, look at this guy. Just a good intro ripping on me. You know, I'm proud of you. But no, I have not packed, but I have been blasting that song over and over. you know the one that's like if you go in Tokyo

Fast and Infuriate You know what I'm talking about So I just play that over and over Instead of actually like planning anything But I have booked hotel So that's good Gonna mostly wing it But some listeners have hit me up

With some knowledge Which is cool Offer to get drinks Though still no intro To a team Tomadachi So we're slacking on that But everything else is looking good Yeah Tokyo doesn't have any people in it

Right you should be at a fire at a hotel It should be easy Anyway, we've got shows up on the Patreon, I think, probably a few new listeners from promo at Spotify, so hi, if that's your first time hearing us today. Yeah, patreon.com slash anewort podcast for bonus episodes, interviews, things of that nature. And you might recall a couple shows back. We chatted about Panguna in Bougainville, which was the largest man-made hole on earth when it was dug in the 1970s.

More whole chat from none other than Editha to Dale. Did you know that the moat around the edge of Ankawa in Cambodia is the same volume? as the Great Pyramid of Geesea. That's good, right? That's good. Let's throw this open to the listeners. Any whole facts, any facts at all? The Underworld podcast at gmail.com.

Yeah, love to learn about big holes, can't we for summer? Dig some on the beach. But I just want to make sure the audience appreciates this line. Clandestine Labs, Mule Tracks, and Landing Strip. Later in the jungle, like a vascular system. I mean, this is a guy who can barely tie his shoelaces, but he writes like just you know drug war poetry like the shakespeare of sinolaa the hemingway of heroin Sean Williams oh man how the hell do I follow that up I mean I have been wearing Chelsea boots for a

hell of a long time because yeah that first part is true anyway all of this that's quite the gear change from a massacre in a Peruvian village which you just heard about and this whole show is going to be one gear change after the next so prepare for that guys from civil war to cocaine flights And even a wee section on Coca-Cola in a single factory in New Jersey because, yes, Coca-Cola did originally have cocaine in it, which is awesome. And yet another reason why the war on drugs sucked balls. And sorry, hipster restaurants, Mexican Coke. It's just Coke, right? It's not special.

No, it actually, it's different, right? It's better because it's sugar, not corn syrup. And a little, a little Jew secret for you. The only time it's widely available in America and supermarkets all over is Passover, because Coke makes kosher Passover. corn syrup, not coach for Passover, so they use sugar. And the ones who know they stock up during that time. That is cool. And I think that was the first time anyone said, let me tell you a little juice secret on a podcast. And then it was a lovely, you know, upbeat fact. Yeah, yeah, it was. It just nothing but hatred afterwards. Yeah, exactly. The idea of this episode actually came around

to me, I think like two years, two and a half years ago. And that's when I went out on the in Catrell. Shout out to me being a hipster and very cool and not at all. Rich and an idiot for my dad's 60th birthday with my brother-in-law. They didn't complete it. I did. Fun story. We all fell out and I did three days alone, one for the memoir, more likely my therapist. But anyone who's done that trip and it is like an incredible experience will have had this stuff carried by teams of Peruvian porters. These guys are probably the hardest as nails geysers in the world. They're carrying bed-sized kits on their back, like 30 to 40 pounds. I mean, that is the legal limit.

I reckon it's way more. And these guys are climbing up mountains or jogging down steep ancient steps in flip-flops in 20-degree heat at like 12,000 feet above sea level. And I mean, they are running. No Westerners can go faster than these kings. My guy told me the closest anybody's gotten was a group of Kiwi special forces, and they gave up after a day. So is the secret to just being in shape and endurance running?

Is it cocaine? Just doing it cocaine? Yeah, yeah, let's just say that. I mean, they're drinking a hell of a lot of coke of tea, which actually, if you've been around that way, it's really nice, and it does make you feel better. But the thing is, a lot of these guys, they are former members of the Shining Path,

the Senderro luminosso, this crazy mega, mega-left guerrilla force that terrorized Peru from 1980 onwards. Obviously, when the country's civil war ended in 2000, well, ended is a bit too strong a word, there's tons of rebels without a cause. Nice. Yeah, yeah, like that.

So several hundred of them become porters on the Inca Trail, which, like I said in the intro, it's just a short distance from Machu Picchu and Kusco, but a lot more of them have become mochileros, or backpackers of a different kind. And they're ferrying bricks of cocaine from the Vraim, or Vraim, this dense jungle region, out to the coast on foot. I mean, I'm not sure what's worse, to be honest, carrying drugs along one of the world's most dangerous routes or carrying the bedrolls of fat Western tourists. I mean, it swings aroundabouts, I guess.

But because my two travel buddies had left me to do the trail with my guide, Jose, thanks to you, shout out, mate, we get talking about all this, right? It's fascinating. and he tells me there's actually a state company dedicated to exporting legal coca leaves from farmers in the vrym to the US. And this firm is called Enaco, which stands for Impresa Nacional de Coca, and it has a deal with one single company in the US, yes, for Coca-Cola, but it can't compete with the narcos. For one, this one American company caps how many coca it can bring in from Peru,

which means it can only hope to command so much of the Peru, covean coca market. Second, farmers can only sell their very best coca leaves to Enoco for export, but larkoes, they'll buy any old crap, broken leaves, stuff laying on the ground, you name it. You don't need top quality coca to make the drug. So legal coca is a stagnant market, and the illicit trade is booming, as if anybody listening to this show didn't already know that. over 30% of the world's Coke is produced in Peru, by the way, which by 2021 estimates is around 700 metric tons, which if you state the average street price of $81 per gram, means the Peruvian market is worth $57 billion, which is quite a lot of money, isn't it, Danny?

Wait, hold on there. I expect better from you. I guess $81 a gram probably sounds accurate, but you know the stuff on the street is stepped on like crazy by the time it reaches, you know, nostrils and Bushwick. So I would at the very least double that number if we're talking about like the street price just because they're probably being cut at least 50%. And honestly, I'm disappointed. You know, a young Sean Williams haunting the bathroom stalls of Berlin leather clubs. He would have known that. As usual, I get, I get kudos for a nice little metaphor and then I get slammed for my maths. But, you know, such is life. But yeah, it's worth a hell of a lot of money anyway, this market. We're going to find out how that kind of taints everything later on.

This is all very interesting, of course, and many thanks to Jose. You made what could have been three very long days in the middle of the jungle, just breeze by. And I don't think my dad or brother-in-law listen to the show, but if they do, well done to you both. But anyway, what's even more fascinating, which is the meat of today's show, is how the shining path went from this mad group of Maoist zealots, desperate to topple capitalism, to handmaidens.

of the cocaine trade, which I guess you could argue is the most gloves off capitalist market on earth. Again, we've spoken about this a bunch from Nepal to Nigeria, political movements that turn from ideology to drugs. And it's kind of mad that all this is playing out right next to the Inca Trail. Yeah, I mean, we just did a couple episodes right on FARC and the PKK, two groups that have made money, or funded their wars at least partially through taxing drug traffickers, though I would say FARC, way more than the PKK. Yeah, and this being the Andes, we are going to get into some of the FARC stuff. You spoke to Toby Mews.

I think that was like six weeks ago, something like that. That was a great, great episode. But let's walk this shining path, an audio experience, shining path, if you will, all the way back to the beginning, which is 1970. That is the year a philosophy professor named Abimeel Husman comes back from a visit to China. Let's just say has been a quite a formative one. Now, if you ever think college campus is a radical now, take a peek back at the Cold War. You've got Marxists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Stalinist, Maoists, all arguing over which brand

of doomed leftist economists is the best. And Husman returns from China believing that world communism is locked in battle between those who follow Chairman Mao and everybody else. I mean, I like hot pot too, man, but come on. And this Maoist paradise, Husman believes, requires the waging of a quote, popular war to down the government and install a new one. And so, Husman founds the shining path, breaking off from the Peruvian Communist Party,

and by 1980 he's got over 500 members, with their power base being the Vrain. Now, don't fear, this isn't a Cold War podcast, not Dan Carlin. It's not a treatise on planned economies. We're going to get to the drug soon enough. But the war begins like this. In 1980, the military,

which has been ruling Peru for over a decade, allow civilian elections to be held. The shining path boycotts the vote, and it fans out across the countryside, attacking state positions including police stations. In 1982, the Peruvian state has had enough of this, and it sends in the army. But it's not so easy to flush out peasant guerrillas

who are nested in the Andes. So this conflict drags on and on, with seemingly no end in sight. And by 1990, when European communism, at least, is breathing its last, Husman and his shining path goons have their highest numbers with up to 10,000 rebels. But these aren't your average left-wing fighters, and Husman isn't just a firebrand lecture hall nerd.

He calls himself Presidente Gonzalo. I mean, that's quite funny. And his closest followers see him as a kind of Messiah prophet, sent from God to usher in a new era of communism. Sort of Pol Pot meets David Koresh. Why is all this stuff like, it's just the Reformation anyway? And throughout the insurgency, middle and high-ranking generals in the movement continually try to upseat Husman, believing, correctly, that he's gone completely bonkers.

And like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, the shining path is feared for medieval levels of brutality, including stonings, beheadings, and kangaroo courts. They kidnap children into battalions, and they murder anybody who refuses to fight. Looking for a protein shake that tastes as good as it performs? Meet Rock and Protein Max. Packed with 50 grams of fuel, it'll help you keep up when your day won't slow down. And because it's always creamy and never chalky,

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Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Now, you might imagine these leftist egalitarians to side with the poor. the rural villagers sprinkled around the Vryam and other barely accessible parts of Peru, especially indigenous groups like the Quechua, whose language is the language of the Incan Empire, which is very cool. But no. Oh yeah, shocker. Shocker that one. Yeah, yeah, massive shock. These are the people caught between the Shining Path and the state, and their fate is to be hunted and killed mercilessly by both sides, both of which think they're traitors. Almost 70,000 people died during the war,

the majority of them killed by the Shining Path who slaughter anybody they think is against the cause. I mean, I'm not a political or military strategist, but it just doesn't seem like a good way for Presidente Gonzalez to win support. And side note, my uncle is Peruvian and his name is Gonzalo. So that's cool, you know? Does he have a beard? No, he does not have a beard. Oh, that is a shame. I think you need to have a beard if you call Gonzalo, but yeah, sorry to your uncle.

Anyway, there are vicious splinters and battles and ebbs and flows of the war. But if you want to know more about this, there is a fantastic, like, really, really good literary account called The Shining Path, Love, Madness and Revolution in the Andes. It's quite recent. It's on the reading list. I strongly recommend you give it a go. It's pretty short. But briefly, in 1990, the tide of the conflict turns when Alberto Fujimori becomes Peruvian president, and he goes hard on the show. shining path. His army carries out

extraditutional killings and torture suspected rebels and it arms so-called peasant patrols or Rondas Campesinas to hunt down the communists as well. And on September 25, 1992 undercover cops storm a small

rented house in a Lima suburb and they capture Abimail Hosman and five of his top lieutenants. He's paraded about on TV in a black and white striped prison outfit, bushy bearded and waving his hands about out in a cage like a mad drunk uncle watching the world series. I'm not referencing your uncle, of course. And authorities soon find Hosman guilty of terrorism, high treason, is there a middle

and low treason? And the organization of subversive groups, which is pretty hard to mount a defense against given his presidente Gonzalo. And they sentence him to life without parole. Yeah. What's an example do you think of low treason? I feel like maybe cheering against your country in the Olympics, like that could be low treason. Yeah, I mean, we're in poppy season back home, so maybe not wearing a poppy at all times on the front of your head. Anyway, Husman then tells his guerrillas to down their arms to stop the struggle, but another shock, they carry on without him, or at least some of them do. Now, it's not like Peru's coca trade was just in hibernation this entire time, far from it. In fact, the country's coca production has been booming for over

a hundred years. When European chemists, yes, of course, Germans, first extracted alkaloid cocaine from the leaf in 1860, it was first used as a popular stimulant. I mean, if you read Sherlock Holmes novels, that guy, he really liked cocaine and a bit of opium, he was dabbling in a lot. So companies begin flocking to the Andes, particularly Colombia and Peru, to grab as many leaves from local farmers as they can. Among these are the makers of Coca-Cola, whose slogan is, drink Coca-Cola, which, yeah, I don't think Madison Avenue was quite a talent base that it had been in the 1950s back then. Anyway, the drinks creator, a pharmacist named John Steyeth Pemberton, calls it a quote, brain tonic and intellectual beverage, which, of course, we all know that it is.

Yeah, I mean, dude, Coca-Cola really is just so damn good out of the last, like, cold glass bottle, you know, like imagine how good it was when it had cocaine in it. It must have been just like the best thing ever, like a slice of pizza, and a glass, and it was. It really is. It was a good. And, you know, like, cocaine Coca-Cola, just that'll set you right on an afternoon. But there's got to be, like I was just thinking about this, there's got to be someone on TikTok who was trying out like the old Coca-Cola recipe or has done that. And if not, someone really should be. Like, hit me up, Mr. Beast. I have ideas. They're for sale. Let's make something happen. Yes. Do that. Please, for the content. Please, the content would be so good. We love that content. In 1884,

Peruvian scientist Alfredo Bignon pioneers the creation of coca paste and Peru becomes the global leader in cocaine production exporting around 10 tons legally by 1900. Yeah, I mean the lost boys tried to tell us, man, it's all about the legal drug money. It is, it is. A few years later, incidentally,

Coca-Cola ditches its claims to be able to cure headaches, indigestion, and impotence and instead calls itself, quote, the great national temperance beverage in response to prohibition. which is awesome, of course. Don't drink beer, do Coke, much healthier. We call that Miami sober, like if you don't drink alcohol, but you do a lot of cocaine. Yeah, I heard about this when I was in California.

L.A. sober right now is doing tons of gummies and just like drinking cover. Yeah, it's weed and not drinking, not drinking booze. But I feel like, you know, Miami is much more cocaine. I don't know what, there's got to be one that's just, you do a bunch of MDMA, but don't drink alcohol. I don't know what that would be either. Yeah, that's like, that's like disgusting. in Berlin sober. But you don't want to be one of those guys, no way. In the 1920s, however, you get a scare about cocaine in the US, similar to weed,

and the export of coca leaves is banned, except, crucially, for one small firm based out of Illinois called the Stepan Company, which gets America's only exemption to import coca from Peru, which it processes at a single factory in the sleepy New Jersey neighborhood of Maywood. This exemption, plus a bunch of competitor-busting measures by the US government during wartime, helps Coca-Cola become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. And in 1949, Enoco, that national coca company I mentioned before, is christened in Peru to export coca leaves just to Stepan, which it still does. Today, around 10,000 Peruvian coca farmers export around 140,000 kilos of leaves to Stepan via Enoco,

most of which are stripped of alkaloid cocaine, i.e. the good stuff, in Maywood, and sent onto pharma companies across the world for use as a miles anesthetic. The remaining, quote, juice, not my word, is sold by Stepan to Coca-Cola. Mmm, tasty. I guess drink the juice left over from alkaloid coke extraction doesn't quite have that yummy ring to it. Wait, so what do they do with the juice? Like, is that in Coca-Cola now? Like what is what's going on Sean? I'm confused.

I mean, for the secret of that, I think you'd have to break into the Maywood factory because it's not on the Steppen website. And neither, by the way, is any mention of Coca-Cola, despite it clearly being the firm's bill. It's a bit like when I worked at Domino Records in 2008 and they promoted every little band

except Arctic Monkeys and France Ferdinand, despite those two being like 99% of their sales. I mean, who didn't love sons and daughters? But come on, guys. anyway, I digress. Did I digress? Yeah, I think of bloody did, didn't I? Yeah.

By 1945, there is a small, very quiet, illegal coca trade running through the Andes, with Mochineros, the backpackers from Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Cuba smuggling small quantities of it from the mountains via labs to the US. And there's a kind of secret war by American authorities to stop them, albeit pretty half-assed from what I can see. and nothing like the drug wars coming down the road. A really good academic paper I read describes these early routes as, quote,

disorganized crime, or quote, ant trades, which is kind of a cool phrase. The only major-ish kingpin during the era is a guy named Eduardo Barreso, a Peruvian sailor living in Long Island who quarterbacks a team of Peruvians and Chileans to bring cocaine into the states on aircrafts and ships. Between 1947 and 1949, the Baloesel gang is believed to have brought in around 100 kilos of blow.

In 1950, he's arrested with six of his associates, and authorities quickly discover a far wider operation, including several Cubans who, in a foreshadowing of the future, have been bringing gear into South Florida via their homeland. Remember Bumfato? Ah, Bumfato. I mean, just a great episode. It's actually, I think it's one of our most loved and just an incredible track made by audio producer Dale that we still get requests for. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to say it was my writing, but it's the song.

It's the song that made that one. But just like Danny got into in his last episode about Hussein Baibirchen and opium in Turkey, it's not until the 1960s when Washington really goes after drugs that Peru's illegal coca industry explodes. Lima, under pressure from the US, bans cultivation. of the leaves altogether without offering any measurable cop substitution program. It says that coca leaf production is holding indigenous Peruvians, those in the Vrym and other remote areas, back from joining, quote, modern society. So the whole thing is pretty thinly

veiled racism and with nothing to fall back on, the farmers turn to the black market. Because Stepan might strip the alkaloid coca from its imports, but there are plenty of cowboys who want nothing but the alkaloid. Give me the alkaloid. Show me nothing but alkaloid guys. By the 1970s, cocaine production is roaring in tropical regions north of the Vrym. With the blow industry's headquarters being the city of Huanulco. Look it up. I mean, Peru has got to be one of the prettiest places on earth.

By the mid-80s, when the shining path is running riot, Peru is second behind its Andean neighbor Colombia for coca production. Where, like I wonder where Bolivia falls in this, right? Because isn't it usually, I mean, I guess Colombia, Peru and Bolivia kind of like alternate one, two and three, yeah? Yeah, yeah, actually, we're going to get into that like a tiny, tiny bit further down, but I'd like to do a whole episode on Bolivia. I didn't really think about it until research in this one,

but it's gone a completely different way to the other two countries. And it might be worth getting into at some point where we can find someone there that can speak about it for a bonus. But, yeah, we're in the 80s, of course. There's chaos there now, right? I just was seeing like, what is it, Evo Morales' party is, like, splitting up and they're fighting each other. Yeah, yeah, it's all gone a bit peatong there,

and there's a few gangs running around. Yeah, maybe that would be a good episode, actually, at a month or two. But, yeah, it's kind of, it's completely different to the other two countries for a reason that we'll touch on later on. Oh, sorry. Yeah, if you know more about it, get in touch,

and we would love to find out more. I mean, this is the 80s, this is the golden age of cocaine we're up to right now in this story. It's Scarface, it's Wall Street, etc. and the illegal coca and cocaine industry is now more than a hundred times what its legal industry once had been. The Shining Path establishes coca refineries in Navariam and other remote regions to fund its doomed revolution. But around 1990, Peru drops way down below Colombia for two main reasons. Firstly, the cartels in Cali and Medellin have, to use Silicon Valley's phrasing,

vertically integrated their narcotics industries. That is Escobar and Rodriguez-Orojuela. Just leave that in Dale. I can never say that name properly. Brothers, they have perfected a system that grows, produces, and moves cocaine right inside Colombia without a need for Peru's farmers. Yeah, you can see our recent episode

on the Cali Cartel from Amon the Back to get more into the weeds on that. Yeah, I really wish they had different names, those idiots. Oreguela, Oreguela. Anyway, second, as part of his dirty campaign against the Shining Path, Alberto Fujimori goes after coca farmers, including a US-backed operation to shoot down planes taking off from jungle landing strips from Peru to Colombia,

which results in many, many deaths. The Vryme in particular comes under heavy fire. It's people again caught between Fujimori's state and Husman's lunatics, because their homeland has been singled out by the country, communists as a quote liberated zone. When you finally find your thing, you want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva to make it an even bigger and better thing. Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design

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In 1992, Stream now, Paynever. In 1992, Husman is captured. But when he tells his followers to lay down their arms, some do so, but another faction splits off, declaring him to be a traitor and continuous fighting sporadically. I mean, this is what happens if you go into the far left. You just split and split and split and split and everyone's a traitor. Anyway, they prefer to call themselves

the militarized Communist Party of Peru, people's front of Judea stuff, really. I mean, again, there is a lot of nuance to these splits, but we won't get into them, we doubt you'd want to hear about them anyway. The conflict nominally ends in 2000, when Fujimori is removed from office, and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is founded to investigate war crimes on both sides. But shining path attacks remain a fixture of Peruvian news well into the 2010s, and certain factions of the group even form a partnership with the FARC,

Colombia's revolutionary forces across the border, that are ready knee-deep in the narcotics trade. connection is absolutely crucial. Because in the year 2000, the US finances Colombia's gigantic 8 billion and 15 year plan Colombia, which in the wake of the collapse of the Medellin and Cali cartels cracks down hard on narcoes, paramilitaries and rebel groups commanding the now fragmented coca trade in Colombia. Some move operations across the Ecuadorian border, but many more set-up shop in Peru. Here's an extract from a piece

in the North American Congress on Latin America's magazine, Nacla, quote, illicit coca and cocaine's Peruvian resurgence since 2005 has quietly occurred in tandem with the Colombian's government's increasing military and social prowess in drug

production zones and Bolivia's new ability to rein in illicit coca through innovative social control policies. The three Andean countries offer a sharp study in contrast. Colombia militantly embraced U.S. design drug repression tactics,

brackets, though its policy elites, are now openly questioned in their sustainability, which I guess is what we're at now. Bolivia is fully broken with the U.S. model to work with, instead of against lowland grower unions, and Peru did its best, as usual, to ignore the growing problem, so politically remote from its booming coastal population

and capital Lima. However, transnationalized, Colombian, Sinaloan, and even Russian criminal groups, along with the continued disaffection of Peru's Amazonian-based peasantry, have combined to reboot the industry. So there you've got a little sort of nod to what's going on in Bolivia. It seems very, very different, and yeah, we should definitely go into that at some point in the future. But I hope this is all making sense.

Peru was way behind Colombia as the world's biggest producer of cocaine in the 90s, but planned Colombia and initiatives elsewhere in Latin America, suddenly hand it number one spot into the 2010s, not least because the Peruvian state, burned by years of horrible war with the Shining Path, have essentially washed their hands of the central regions and allowed the Shining Path to become buddies with drug traffickers and the FARC. Yeah, I think Colombia is actually back up, though, no?

Like, isn't that, that's a big thing that Toby Mews has talked about a bunch, this sort of golden age of cocaine growing in Colombia that's actually happening right now. Yeah, I think that's part of that quote that I just said as well, that it's kind of swinging back the other way now that, I mean, you just can't keep up such an expensive drug war. So I think they're falling back. The Colombian state's falling back and now, yeah, more coca's being produced across the border there. So I guess it just ebbs and flows, really.

But in 2012, the leader of the only remaining faction loyal to Abimel Hussman in the Shining Path, al-Altemiol, is captured. And just like that, there is suddenly no tie between the rebels on the ground and the leadership who are now dead or behind bars. And that speeds up the Shining Path's metamorphosis into what Lima now calls a narco terror group. In 2013, Peru officially overtakes Colombia as the world's largest producer of Koka, and in the same year, a group of arrested narcos tells officials that the Shining Path receives $5,000 for every ton of blood. that moves through the Vrame. Times that by over 700,

and that is a lot of tax for one of the continent's poorest places. I mean, like 3.5 mil just doesn't seem like that much, bro. I feel like they could up that tax, for sure. But there's more on top, right? I think they tax it at different stages. So I think it's like five grand. It comes through like a state border

or like a regional border, so they're getting several times that. And it's similar to what the FARC does or did for a while. I can't remember what that's good. Is it called like the Granhero or something? It's like a taxing system they have. Anyway, the Shining Path is able to do this because, unlike in the 90s, there are no huge cartels operating in the Vrym.

It's more a collection of small so-called Firmas, some of which are offshoots of Medellin or Cali, but some of them are just sole traders and madmen looking for a big payday. That makes them way more vulnerable and more likely to pay the Shining Path protection money. In 2015, the Peruvian state releases phone taps, which reveal an alliance between Shining Path Gareas and a Colombian trafficking group called the Cafeteros, that mean the coffee makers? With leaders discussing the killing of an informant.

The Cafeteros are a major refiner of cocaine in the frime, and a Peruvian anti-drug prosecutor tells national television that, quote, for the first time in an objective and concrete manner, the state can corroborate the link between drug trafficking and terrorism in the state. their rhyme. As always in Latin America, the riches of the cocaine trade begin to corrode the state through corruption. In October 2015, the AP's Frank Bayak, I'm really sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name, Frank, publishes a fantastic bombshell piece about how planes loaded full of blow are heading out of the Vrym on dirt airstrips right under the noses of Peru's military. The cargo on each of

these small Cessna 206 tiddlers is worth $7 million abroad. Here is the article, quote, Peru sees 28 metric tons of cocaine or coca paste a year on average from 2011 to 2014, compared to 170 metric tons by Colombia or partners acting on Colombian intelligence. For Peru, that's less than 10% of potential production. For Colombia, it's more than half. Peru's narcotics police operate. on a $12 million annual operating budget with no planes or helicopters. Their Colombian counterpart has a $45 million budget and some 50 planes and 70 helicopters, including U.S. Blackhawks.

You see in the extent of this problem, there's more. The previous year, i.e. 2014, anti-drug prosecutors had complained to their boss that Intel on flights was being leaked to Filmas and the Shining Path guerrillas protecting them. I'll let Frank continue, quote, three times they shared information with the military on when and where drug fights would land, they said. In each case, the plane never showed. The fourth time, they kept the intelligence to themselves and acted alone with police. Guess what happens next?

Quote, the pilot was captured, the co-pilot killed in a firefight, and 357 kilos or 787 pounds of cocaine and 5.5 grand in cash was seized. The March 2014 operation was the only one in the past two years in which drugs, money, plane and pilot were all taken into custody. The pilot who said some military officers charged $10,000 per flight to net narco planes through, said the payments are called coupos, a term for bribes. Apparently none of these Cessna's arrives without carrying at least half a million dollars for coupos in total. And because authorities are so scared to poke the Shining Pass Hornet Ness again, after so many years, it refuses to burn down coca operations altogether. Says Peru's Deputy Defense Minister, quote, what we'd be doing is encouraging Shining Path recruitment. Yeah, it's a fair point in terms of destroying the means of these farmers to earn a living, right?

Like we kind of saw that struggle with that in Afghanistan as well. It's true. And I guess we're getting to the nub of problem, right? is that there really is very few levers they can pull to try and sort of tamp down this industry. Nonetheless, and how's this for a good quote, a retired Peruvian general tells the AP that putting the military in control of the Vrym, given its deep corruption, is, quote, like putting four street dogs to guard a plate of beefsteak.

Now, that, guys, is a kicker. And that almost brings us up to speed on how Peru's Vrym and the Shining Path have become ground zero for the global cocaine trade. There have been many more ham-fisted attempts to substitute crops for local farmers, but it's claimed that most of the cash has ended up in the hands of bogus charities and middlemen. I know I talk about it a lot, but in Kilo in Toby's book, he gets really deep into these attempts to get farmers to grow different crops in Colombia and why those plans fail a lot.

It's actually a fascinating few chapters. I don't remember what the outcome of that it was, but I don't think it was working. Oh, I'm trying to remember the exact plants they try and substitute with it. I think coffee is one of them. And yeah, it's like opium in like Pakistan, Afghanistan, right? It just can't make the same money so why the hell would farmers grow it? Today, over 90% of coca leaves make their way onto the black market. And a third of cocaine, as I mentioned, is produced in Peru.

total amount harvested increasing 3% last year alone. So, Enocho has failed. The Peruvian state has failed and yet again, villagers and indigenous groups in the Vrym are living out daily struggles between the state, cartels or Firmas, and the remnants of Abimal Husman's murderous communists. In 2019, the Shining Path releases a 400-page document

outlining its plans to increase drug trafficking and step-up attacks on the military, primarily by taking territory in the vine as it did in the 1980s. First of all, nobody's reading 400 pages of Maoist rankings. But second of all, why would you announce your plan to do this? Like, I'm no militia commander. If data management is slowing down your business, you need the Intuit ERP.

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They weren't guessing. They were asking the victim who killed them. Sounds unbelievable, right? But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. B. Dürfer. And every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I bring you a real, chilling, true crime story connected to that exact day in history. From Killer Cannibal Brothers to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult and the strange story of the bloody hammer in the frozen cabin. These aren't the cases you've heard a hundred times. They're the ones that make you stop and think, how have I never heard this before?

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it. That's basically the thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. It claims it's going to do this the Shining Path by winning over local farmers to the course, although this is obviously not just clownish bullshit, but murderous bullshit. As a result, thousands of inhabitants of the Vrym are taking up arms as Altoo defense us again against the narcos. I mean, that settles us, right? The auto defenses thing. Like there's four magazines left worth reading. All of their budgets are less than the average salary of a suburban dentist. But somebody they need to send Sean Williams, this charming Englishman, to the mountains of Peru, to do this story. Like, I've seen the rates he gets paid. He won't ask for much. I tell him all the time to

fight for more, but he won't do it. So give him a call, get him on a plane. Let's make this happen. You know, Lima is one of the best places I've ever visited in my life. And it's a direct, I think there's a direct flight from Auckland. So, yeah, please actually do send me there. I'll just do the Inca Trail again and talk to all the porters. That would be pretty cool. I remember Alberto Fujimori's peasant patrols? Peru handed out over 5,000 rifles to villages in the 1990s, and surprise, surprise, none of them were returned. So you get growing violence between the groups in the Vrym, which results in the massacre from this episode's Cold Open. Says a local radio presenter, quote, it's simple economics.

The demand from outside dictates the production. The only thing that could ever change to Koka Market is if synthetic drugs will replace cocaine in the West. I mean, the pro-meth, pro-fendinal stance. Like, it's a bold one and you have to respect it. Yeah, it's refreshing to hear new ideas on the drug crisis. Anyway, it really is getting bad in Peru's hinterlands, and pretty much nothing is on the cast to stop it. Here's Omar Odi, a 20-year-old soldier in the Peruvian army,

speaking to Al Jazeera, quote, Ask any man my age in the rhyme, they've all worked in the drug trade at some point. Everybody here is poor. working in cocaine production offers a way out. At first, I worked in a coca maceration pit, which is a clandestine cocaine lab in the jungle. I helped carry coca sacks and used chemicals to macerate the leaves

and extract the coca alkaloids. And he goes on, quote, Later I began taking jobs as a mule, which is far more dangerous. We would go up to the mountains and walk through no man's land until we would get to secret stash points from where others would take care of delivery. out there there are few rules. People are killed for what they carry.

You can't trust anyone. I wish there are another way to make money in the region, perhaps for industrialisation of coca for other uses, such as tea and flour. Now that I'm 20 years old, all I can see is that things are not the same as when I was growing up. They're intensifying.

Life in the vrym used to be more rustic. Now many simple peasants have become master chemists. There have been some small winds against the shining path in recent years, years, leaders have been locked up or killed in firefights. And on September 11, 2021, Abimal Husman dies behind bars aged 86. It really did not deserve to live that long. But as the massacre in today's intro shows and a series of gun battles that have followed in the years since, the shining path is going nowhere, even if its path has long lost its luster. Wow, what a closer.

You know, when you first told me you wanted to do this episode, I actually didn't know much about it and thought it wouldn't work. It'd be too much of this shining path like weirdo you know, uh, violent Marxist landing this stuff. But this was really fascinating. Like really interesting stuff that uh, that it was I won him over guys. Yeah.

You always do. But yeah, speaking of which, did you see that? I just saw today that there's a new New Yorker piece on Captagon which is only three years after our hour long episode on the Cap DECON trade and Sir becoming a Nucker State. But just kidding. I haven't actually read it yet, but the author

is Ed Caesar, who is a good dude, and I'm sure the piece has a ton of new info. But maybe we'll do Bill. Oh, yeah. Ed Sears has been on the show a couple times as well. Yeah. Yeah, he's great. Great guy. And I'm sure the piece is incredible.

But yeah, maybe we'll do a redux another episode on Capiton because it seems like a lot is happening. As always, if you want to hear those interviews with Ed, patreon.com, slash the underworld podcast. Sign up there. Sign up on Spotify. Sign up on iTunes. Underworldpod.

com, merch, email, the underworld podcast at gmail.com, all of those things. And yeah, you guys will be hearing this. I'm already in Japan for like a week. So hopefully things are working out over there. Yeah, until next week. Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up, and audit dread, it's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place, and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clear visibility, faster deals.

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