Peru shoot-down law turns drug smugglers to boats, backpackers

A law in Peru that allows the military to shoot down planes suspected of smuggling drugs has forced traffickers to move cocaine out of a remote jungle region by boat and on foot, the prime minister said on Tuesday. The law, which ended a 15-year ban on the downing of civilian aircraft when it went into effect in January, intends to keep scores of small planes from flying drugs out of the Peruvian Amazon and into neighboring Bolivia and Brazil. Prime Minister Pedro Cateriano said that even though the military had not yet shot down any new planes, the threat of force had led to a sharp drop in the number of “narco-flights.” “Drug traffickers are using other routes to transport drugs, we’ve seen that in recent months,” Cateriano said at a press conference, citing police intelligence.
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