Deep in the jungles of South America, an elite police force is at work. They carry out raids, conduct seizures, and create mayhem for the criminals who lurk there. These camo-clad cops are the narcotics police. Their dangerous job is to fight drug smuggling.
Peru is the world’s largest grower of coca plants. Peruvians have used the leaves of the coca since ancient times. The leaves by themselves have little if any drug-like effect.
But drug lords turn coca leaves into a paste. Then they combine the paste with other chemicals to make a harmful and illegal drug. Not only is the cocaine illegal, but it is also risky. Cocaine use increases the user’s risk of heart attack, lung problems, stroke, and sudden cardiac death.
The drug police in Peru are part of the 90-member Tactical Anti-Drug Operations Group. All are young men, with most under the age of 30. Paramedics, sharpshooters, and scuba divers are part of this group of drug hunters.
Lately, the drug police have gone beyond guns and handcuffs. They’re now also using powerful explosives in their fight against cocaine. Drug dealers often transport their cocaine out of the jungles by small airplane. So the police locate drug dealers’ secret airstrips and blow them to smithereens. That way the planes cannot land or take off.
On a recent airstrip-blasting mission, a few dozen police drove along rutted, muddy roads in pickups. Then they crossed streams and walked for hours through dense jungle—all while pushing 55-pound sacks of explosive material. Arriving at a river, they convinced a boater to ferry them across in a dugout. From there they walked another hour to a hidden airstrip.
The drug police dug a hole five feet deep. They filled the crater with explosives and KABOOM! The blast spewed a portion of the dirt airstrip skyward.
The police hope that repairs to the shattered airstrip will slow the drug traffickers down for three days or so. But it may not. Drug lords hire locals to fill in the holes almost as quickly as the police can blast them.
Peru spends $8.4 million every year on blasting holes in drug traffickers’ airstrips. But it hasn’t stopped the dangerous drug flights from South America to the United States and beyond.
Ever wonder how a business as dark and deadly as drug dealing keeps flourishing? Sin is like that. Too often we crave what’s bad for us. It’s comforting to know that God knows our problems. He offers forgiveness and restoration to those who ask. “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us.” (1 John 1:9)
