One of the five Peruvians detained in Bolivia on 28 June on drug-trafficking charges is a member of the Shining Path armed group, Bolivian Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti affirmed on 1 July.
One of the five Peruvians detained in Bolivia on 28 June on drug-trafficking charges is a member of the Shining Path armed group, Bolivian Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti affirmed on 1 July.
“We can confirm that one of the individuals arrested in Pelechuco belongs to the Shining Path terrorist group; we are exchanging further information with the Peruvian authorities,” Llorenti said at a press conference.
Pelechuco is a border town north of the binational Lake Titicaca, where five Peruvians and a Bolivian who were transporting cocaine were detained on 28 June.
The minister did not specify the name of the supposed Shining Path member, although several local media outlets affirmed that it was believed to be Ulser Pillpa Paitán, “Comrade Jhony.”
Three of the detained Peruvians were wearing the uniform of the Bolivian anti-narcotics police, according to the Bolivian anti-drug force, which indicated that they were surprised while trying to make an illegal seizure of forty-three kilograms of cocaine from the other three detainees, supplanting the authorities.
The agency did not specify which detainees were the ones who were transporting the drugs and which were disguised as Bolivian police officers.
The six individuals involved in the drug case are being detained in La Paz.
Shining Path, a guerrilla group, emerged in Peru in 1980 and had its period of greatest activity up to 2000, when its chief leaders were taken prisoner or died in combat, following a ferocious confrontation with the state that left around seventy thousand dead.
At present, a residual group of between two hundred and three hundred men operates in a coca-growing area in southern Peru.