Irish man (40) in Peru collapses as police seize 55kg of cocaine from rental car
An Irish man suspected of smuggling 55kg of cocaine in South America collapsed as Peruvian police cut open packages containing the drug in the back of a rental car he was using.
Armed officers in Lima grabbed hold of him after his legs crumpled while a detective used a knife to slit one of the wrapped bricks containing the class-A drug.
The man (40) was being held on remand in custody in Lima yesterday with two other men – British and Bulgarian nationals – after appearing before a judge on Tuesday and being warned they face five years in prison if convicted.
The Irish man and his British associate could be seen on Peruvian television, in footage released by police, being held at the boot of their rented Nissan after they were intercepted as they allegedly prepared to smuggle the drugs out of Peru.
The pair had been secretly filmed hugging each other at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport on July 21 after flying separately to Peru.
Police chief Arturo Valverde, head of investigations at a Peruvian police anti-drugs unit called Dirandro, identified the men before confirming: “We confiscated 55 kilos of cocaine from them.”
A Bulgarian bodybuilder accused of supplying them with the drugs as part of his alleged work with UK-based traffickers was also arrested.
He has been identified locally as a “key player in the drug trafficking industry” who police say was working with Irish and British criminals to smuggle cocaine from South America to Europe.
The Bulgarian was detained after detectives who had been tailing him and his alleged accomplices intercepted the car with the two drug-filled suitcases in the boot outside an apartment in the eastern Lima district of La Molina, which the British and Irish men had been using.
The eastern European had been filmed meeting with his contacts in shopping centres in the city. The police force that arrested the men is the same one that detained Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid, the socalled Peru Two, in August 2013.
McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, and Reid, from Scotland, were arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling at Jorge Chavez International Airport after their luggage was found to contain 11kg of cocaine.
They initially claimed they had been coerced by an armed gang, but subsequently pleaded guilty. On December 17, 2013, they were sentenced to six years and eight months’ imprisonment.
McCollum applied to be freed on parole and was released on March 31, 2016, with the prospect of having to remain in Peru for up to six years.
In April 2016, the Peruvian authorities agreed to expel Reid from the country.
She was freed from prison on June 21 that year and immediately returned to Glasgow the following day.
McCollum was returned to Ireland two months later, on August 13, 2016.