But little is known about the scale or nature of organized crime in Peru. What experts do agree is that repression, interdiction, and coca eradication are not working out as planned, and that the dynamics of the drug trade have changed. Instead of feeding the once-insatiable U.S. market, Peru may now account for as little as five percent of the estimated 300 tons of cocaine Americans snort. Now Brazil, the world's second-biggest market, sucks up much of Peruvian drug production, often not as cocaine but its more addictive and cheaper variants, crack or "bazuco."

Most law enforcement specialists believe that locals run the production and local transportation of cocaine, while Colombian and Mexican intermediaries manage exports, with the recent appearance of the Russian mob to shake things up a bit. The business is supposedly straight-forward. Hundreds of campesinos (farmers) grow the crop, mainly in central and northern Peru. The cocaleros sell the coca leaf or coca base to clanes (small criminal groups often based around families), who ship either coca base or processed cocaine, to a handful of firmas (Peruvian organized crime syndicates), which shift the drugs to departure points (airports, seaports, and border areas) ready to move to Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil. While some Peruvian capos (drug lords) are known to operate in neighboring countries, groups like the Sinaloa cartel and the Russian mob generally handle export.

In spite of government rhetoric to the contrary, organized crime seems to growing unmolested. Virtually no serious players are known to have been arrested or prosecuted for drug running. The one big case working its way through the courts at the moment, involving the notorious Sanchez Paredes clan, looks set to collapse. To add insult to impunity, former President Alan Garcia pardoned some 400 drug traffickers during his second term of office, citing overcrowded jails. And current President Humala also pardoned as many as 100 criminals convicted of trafficking since his election in 2011.

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There is remarkably little concern in Peru over all of this. Peruvians are far more worried about the common crime that touches their daily lives, than the organized crime that has shown itself capable of corrupting the police, prosecutors, judges, and it seems, presidents. And this is because, unlike in Colombia and Mexico, the drug trade involves very little violence. While popular perceptions of insecurity are rising slightly, Peru is widely considered one of the safest countries in South America.

There are at least two possible explanations for this paradox.

The first is that analysts (including the present authors) are completely misreading the situation. In other words, it could very well be that there is considerable violence between producers, dealers and exporters as they compete over market share. The fact is that it is almost impossible to know one way or another. There is no reliable baseline data on the situation and even the most basic figures are wildly inconsistent. For example, the Ministry of the Interior claims that there are 10,000 homicides each year, while the National Police argue that there are just 3,000.