Former mayor of Peru Libre crashed in Brazil with 37 kilos of drugs

Research unit

At around two in the morning on September 7, a patrol from the Special Border Group (Gefron), a team of Brazilian police and military personnel created to prevent drug trafficking from neighboring countries such as Bolivia and Peru, intervened in a small river boat. with three people who were stealthily crossing the Yurúa River, close to the Profeta community, in the municipality of Rodrigues Alves, in the Brazilian state of Acre.

The Gefron patrol was part of a phase of Operación Horus (Egyptian Gods), initiated this year by the authorities of Acre to contain the incessant inflow of drugs, weapons and foreigners across the border that Brazil shares with the Peruvian departments of Ucayali and Mother of God.

After arresting the boat’s three crew members, Brazilian agents found, inside some polypropylene fiber bags, twenty brick-shaped packages (white and red) of cocaine hydrochloride that together totaled more than 20 kilos. and 17 red packages of cocaine base paste (PBC) that, in total, weighed 17 kilos. In other words, 37 kilos of drugs.

In coordination with the Peruvian police, federal agents in Acre managed to determine that one of the three crew members was Yhonni Arce Pachecoa 39-year-old Peruvian who was mayor of Vizcatán del Ene, a district in the province of Satipo (Junín), located in the heart of Vraem, a coca-growing area where drug trafficking and violence by the Militarized Communist Party of Peru persist, Quispe Palomino brothers.

There are no previous Peruvian police records linking Arce to drug trafficking, but there are links to party politics.

Raimundo Rodríguez Oliveira is the other Peruvian detained by Brazilian agents alongside former mayor Arce.

Arce is from Sivia (Huanta, Ayacucho), a district in Vraem. In October 2015 he moved to the city of San Miguel del Ene (Junín), after it became capital of the newly created district of Vizcatán del Ene. That year he became president of the management committee and temporary coordinator of the jurisdiction.

In 2017 he joined the regional movement Peru Libre (PL), an organization created by Vladimir Cerrón.

Yhonni Arce Pacheco went to Lima to meet with the then president of Devida and officials from other state entities while he was mayor of Vizcatán del Ene.

With the support of the PL, that year Arce was elected mayor of Vizcatán del Ene for a one-year term. According to information collected by this newspaper, the new mayor transferred the municipal headquarters to Satipo, where his family lived. From there he dispatched during his term, claiming that San Miguel del Ene was not interconnected.

In October 2018 he became a member of the Peru Libre party, which achieved registration as a national political organization.

After finishing his term, the Peru Libre Political Committee appointed him general secretary of the party in Vizcatán del Ene. Some time later he supported Peru Libre’s candidate for the 2021 presidential elections, Pedro Castillo.

For Peru Libre he ran again for mayor of Vizcatán del Ene in the October 2022 elections, but was not elected. Two months later, following Castillo’s arrest for his December 7 coup d’état, Arce traveled from Vraem to Lima to request the dissolution of Congress. There are photographs of him protesting against the operation that the anti-terrorist police carried out on the premises of the Socialist Party, Nuevo Perú and the Confederation of Peasant Communities.

For security expert Pedro Yaranga, Arce’s arrest is proof of the infiltration of drug trafficking in politics: “No one is safe in Vizcatán del Ene because everything is controlled by remnants of Sendero Luminoso, and they are dedicated to drug trafficking.” [de drogas], starting with the old authorities.” He recalled that Arce had land where he cultivated cocoa and coca.

“I remember Yhonni Arce, he dedicated himself to his land of cocoa and coca cultivation before entering politics. He was one of the promoters of the name of the new district of Vizcatán del Ene, which was confused with Vizcatán, the mountainous area of ​​Huanta where the remnants of Sendero are located”, said Pedro Yaranga.

In 2022, Yhonni Arce Pacheco ran for the second time for mayor of Vizcatán del Ene for the Peru Libre party.

This newspaper sought the versions of Vladimir Cerrón and his brother, deputy Waldemar Cerrón, to consult them about Arce’s militancy in Peru Libre, but until the closing of this edition they did not respond to the messages we sent them.

In this case, the Federal Police of the municipality of Rodrígues Alves (Acre, Brazil) is investigating Arce and the other two detainees, Raimundo Rodríguez Oliveyra and Cosmel Luna Valderrama (both Peruvian, according to information provided by this newspaper).

Source: Elcomercio