Interview: Peru's new gov' t to heighten fight against organized crime

Peruvian President-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and his government will combat drug trafficking and organized crime with heightened intelligence and prevention measures, the president's security adviser Gino Costa confirmed on Friday.

"Strengthening intelligence and investigation is the main tool to pursue drug trafficking," Costa told Xinhua in an exclusive interview at the headquarters of the political party Peruvians for Change (PPK as per its acronym in Spanish) in Lima's central district of San Isidro.

Peruvian police have seized 32 tones of drugs so far in 2016 and destroyed 19 clandestine runways used by the drug cartels, which are part of the wave of criminality that Kuczynski will have to face.

"Regarding preventative measures, we will need to encourage the farmers who grow coca leaves to produce alternative products as coca leaves that (usually) go to drug trafficking," said Costa, who worked as Peru's interior minister in the 2000s.

In parts of the Peruvian Amazon home to illegal coca growing areas, the government needs to make its presence felt, and these areas also need highways to connect villages to the rest of the country, Costa added.

According to Costa, Peru has a plan directed at the coca-farming valleys which includes repressive measures of intelligence work, penal judgement and controlling the drug traffickers in Peruvian prisons.

As for extortionists, kidnappers and robbers operating in Peru's cities, the former minister said the new government will improve urban security as 42 percent of urban families have been victims of such crimes.

"For that reason we are going to build maximum security prisons in order to lock away the ringleaders of drug trafficking, murderous gangs and groups of extortionists in order to hit out at organized crime," said the expert.

Costa, whose security experience also related to jobs with the United Nations during the creation of El Salvador's national police (1990-1997), explained that in terms of security, Kuczynski's plan also seeks to modernize the institutions involved, such as the prosecution and security institutions.

Deploying police onto the streets to watch and patrol is an important preventive action, the official noted, proposing a larger integration between security forces and neighborhood communities.

"The neighborhoods are very unprotected. We have enough police but they aren't where they should be. They should be working hand-in-hand with the municipal watchmen (and women) and organizing the neighbors to support crime prevention," Costa said.

"There is no one better than the neighbors when it comes to knowing about who is who in each neighborhood. We need a community-minded police service doing this prevention work," Costa noted.

He highlighted the need to prioritize intelligence work in order to find out the movements of criminal organizations.

"We need to strengthen our police intelligence ability when it comes to criminal investigations into who is involved in organized crime, extortion and killing," he explained.

The security enforcement officials also need better working conditions and improved investigative tools and legal resources, such as laboratories, and victim and witness protection systems, Costa concluded. Endi