An Irish man suspected of smuggling 55kg of cocaine in South America collapsed to the ground as Peruvian police around him cut open packages containing the drug in the back of a rental car he was using.
Armed police in Lima, Peru, grabbed hold of him after his legs crumpled under him while a detective uses a knife to slit open one of the bricks containing the class-A drug.
The Irish 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.
He and his British associate could be seen on Peruvian television, in footage released by police, being held by the boot of their rented Nissan car after they were intercepted as they allegedly prepared to smuggle the drugs out of the South American country.
The pair had been filmed by undercover cops hugging each other at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport on July 21 after flying separately to Peru.
Jorge Chavez airport, Callao, Lima, Peru. Photo: Getty
Police chief Arturo Valverde, head of investigations at a Peruvian police anti-drugs unit called Dirandro, identified the two 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 drug traffickers was also held.
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.
Colonel Valverde said: “The gang’s modus operandi consisted of smuggling cocaine from Peru into Europe.”
The Bulgarian was detained after detectives, who had been tailing him and his alleged accomplices, intercepted the rented Nissan 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.
He was held at his home in another part of the Peruvian capital.
He had been filmed meeting up with his contacts in shopping malls in the city.
The Irishman fell to the ground during the police operation
The police force that held the men is the same one that arrested NI woman Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid, the so-called Peru Two, in August 2013.
Michaella McCollum, from Dungannon, and Melissa Reid, from Lenzie in Scotland, were arrested on 6 August 2013, on suspicion of drug smuggling at Jorge Chavez International Airport after their luggage was found to contain 11 kilos of cocaine.
They initially claimed they had been coerced by an armed gang but subsequently pleaded guilty. On December 17, 2013, the pair were sentenced to six years and eight months’ imprisonment.
In this Aug. 6, 2013 photo provided by Peru’s National Police, Michaella McCollum Connolly, of Ireland, left, and Melissa Reid, of Britain, stand behind their luggage after being detained at the airport in Lima, Peru. Video emerged showing the two women being nervously interrogated after their detention at Lima’s airport for allegedly trying to smuggle cocaine on a flight to Spain. In the video, Reid says she was forced to take “these bags” in her luggage. She says she didn’t know there were drugs inside them. (AP Photo/Peru’s National Police)
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 released from prison on June 21 that year and immediately returned to Britain, arriving at Glasgow Airport the following day.
McCollum returned to Europe two months later, arriving at Dublin Airport in Ireland on August 13, 2016. She later wrote a book about her experiences titled You’ll Never See Daylight Again.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has been contacted for comment.