Children are being used to transport cocaine in Peru’s remote Amazon region along the Brazilian border, while 17-year-old Luis, who lives in Breu, described his own experience. Luis, who belongs to the Amahuaca people, said that at age 14 he was sent into the jungle by three men with a revolver and 7 kilograms of cocaine paste.
His real name was not disclosed to protect his identity. Luis said that on his first trip he walked through dense jungle for three days, staying alert for jaguars at night and taking turns sleeping.
Drug trafficking expands in Breu
Breu, the capital of the Yurua district in eastern Peru, has become a transit point for coca leaves from the Andes and the interior Amazon en route to Brazil and Bolivia. Traffickers move cocaine paste along the border using forest roads, trails, rivers and clandestine airstrips.
Breu is reached by an unpaved airstrip connecting it to Pucallpa. The strip can be used regularly during the dry season, while the rainy season largely cuts the town off from the rest of the country. Brazil’s Acre state is about a 40-minute boat ride away via the Yurua River.
The region’s geographic isolation, where Indigenous people live, has left government services limited and created conditions for illicit economies to gain strength. Breu Mayor Manuel Arevalo Mogrovejo said he was concerned that young people were consuming illegal substances. Mogrovejo said the area was being used as a corridor for transporting drugs, not producing them.
Fernando Aroni Lozano, president of the Yurua Indigenous Federation, said the police checkpoint on the Peru-Brazil border had been abandoned for more than 15 years. The condition of the border markers and the checkpoint reflects the weakness of oversight of drug trafficking.
Former logging road becomes a new smuggling route
The route Luis took was not originally created to transport drugs. An oil company opened the road in the 1980s, and loggers expanded it in the 1990s. The route was used to transport cedar and mahogany before expanding through trails that reached deeper into the jungle.
Timber was taken to the Ucayali River and along this major tributary of the Amazon to Pucallpa. The road network known as UC-105 is now used for coca cultivation, clandestine airstrips, illegal mining and cocaine trafficking.
More than 60 square kilometers of forest were cleared within 5 kilometers of the road in Yurua between 2000 and 2021. Researcher David Salisbury said roads did more than increase deforestation. He said these networks provided access for illicit activities that threaten the cultural structures and livelihoods of Indigenous communities.
Intercontinental Highway project under debate
Peruvian lawmakers introduced a bill in early 2021 to include the existing route in the planned Intercontinental Highway, which would connect Pacific ports on Peru’s coast to Brazil. The bill defined formalizing the road as a matter of “public interest,” but it did not become law.
Despite this, the regional government of Ucayali included the route in its road plans, and work on the ground continued. Supporters of the project argue that the road would connect remote communities to markets and increase trade with Brazil.
Indigenous organizations, environmental groups and Peru’s ombudsman opposed the project. They said the route posed environmental risks and that local communities had not been consulted in advance. The road is planned to pass near the 470,000-hectare Murunahua Indigenous Reserve, home to isolated communities.
Salisbury said the route did not constitute a realistic economic corridor between Peru and Brazil from a geographic standpoint. He said the road would pass through Indigenous lands and protected areas covered by dense forests, arguing that the project was being presented as a justification for extracting natural resources, using low-wage labor and trafficking illegal substances.
Children face cocaine couriering and consumption
Luis said the people who approached him, his brother and other Indigenous children behind the market in Breu were Peruvian. He said children were increasingly exposed to rolled cigarettes called “ticket,” filled with a concentrated cocaine extract prepared with kerosene and other chemicals.
After being taken to Pucallpa by a twin-engine aircraft, Luis said he was later transported by road to Nueva Italia, where he received the cocaine shipment. He said he returned to Breu after walking along a jungle trail for three days, sleeping with revolvers and taking turns standing guard for protection.
Luis said the three men paid them when they delivered the drugs. He said he received 1,500 Peruvian soles, or about $440, the largest amount of money he had ever seen, and spent most of it on household needs for his mother.
Salisbury said illicit economies offer short-term cash income but make it harder for people who enter these systems to leave. He said the expansion of roads and trails could destabilize broader political and economic networks as well as Indigenous communities.
Alleged armed threat on the Brazilian side
Families in the Apiwtxa Indigenous community in Brazil, about 40 kilometers as the crow flies from the Peruvian border, were allegedly threatened in July by Spanish-speaking men reportedly carrying machine guns. The community, known for its Indigenous-led land-protection efforts, has come under pressure from criminal routes expanding along the border.
Luis said he had decided never to work as a drug courier again. He said he wanted to go to Pucallpa to complete his education and one day lead his own community.
