Who are they and how much do they pay for the new mules who enter the country with two kilograms of cocaine in their stomachs?

People with low resources, immigrants from neighboring countries whose studies sometimes do not even reach the full primary level and an immense economic need. Drug traffickers take advantage of the most extreme vulnerability of men and women to literally put the body, swallow up to two kilograms of cocaine distributed in capsule of ten grams for a total of one thousand dollars and They cross the Argentine border on foot or by bus to risk their freedom and their life.

The synonyms to name them are numerous: mules, human couriers, camels, donkeys, have been characterized in detail in movies and dozens of books over the past fifteen years. Argentina had its mullet transit boom between 2007 and 2014 where they were detected almost daily at Ezeiza International Airport. same a special unit was created at the interzonal general hospital of Agudos, Dr. Alberto Antranik Eurnekian treat the ingested and carry out their evacuation as soon as possible. The Asparagus was the preferred laxative by the doctors and doctors who treated them.

During the period 2012-2013, according to official figures, the health center attended 80 people sent by the PSA directly from the airport, with cases that usually end up under the drug smuggling figure in economic criminal jurisdiction. But with technological advances in controls and profiles becoming more recognizable, the gangs stopped sending mules ingested with cocaine by air. An experienced federal researcher in Comodoro Py, accustomed to the large narco-porteño bands who operated historically in the cities of Retiro and Bajo Flores, he does not remember a case of mullet ingested in the last ten years.

However, men and women with cocaine in the stomach have followed and continue to enter the country.

This type of traffic considered by many as extinct remains active according to researchers consulted, especially in the border area of ​​Salta and Jujuy with Bolivia where the number of people ingested detected does not stop. The road from Bolivia and cross the country by land routes to Salta or Jujuy to arrive by bus to Liniers or Retiro.as the final destination. As you may have known Infobae, many of the routes do not end in Buenos Aires, but continue by land to Mendoza to be able to cross the goods in Chile.

According to the latest data published by the Prosecutor's Office (PROCUNAR), the 38% of current causes of micro-trafficking comprises ingested mules detected at the various border controls, a trend that has been maintained since at least 2014.

More than 90% of these mules are people who carried cocaine, hydrochloride or base paste. According to the profile of the mules, they remain vulnerable people, 70% are foreigners from Bolivia or Peru They see in the trip the opportunity to get money in a short time.

Information that breaks with the imaginary that identifies the mullet narco with the feminine gender according to surveys at the northern border of the country there are more men ingest than women.

The official percentages speak of 65% of the cases where the mullet is a man, while the remaining 35% are women. The cliché of automatically thinking about women when you talk about people who have cocaine in your stomach is based on a certain logic: in recent years, more than 60% of women in prison in the country are behind bars or under house arrest for narco microtraffic crimes.

Is it wise to stop them? Mules are without a doubt the weakest link in the chain of drug trafficking. Federal investigators consulted acknowledge that his arrest very rarely leads to great progress in research to disrupt criminal gangs.

This occurs mainly because the ingested and they do not have information about the leaders in the groupthe phones they can provide do not lead to specific clues. They do not want to talk for afraid of what drug traffickers can do to him to their loved ones or to themselves for revenge.

So, they prefer spend between six and five years in the federal penitentiaries of the country.

Do mules collaborate with justice, speak, say something? "The figure of the repentant has long been used in the causes of drug trafficking but It is very difficult for inmates to want to use it for fear what organizations can do. In many cases, they give information but that corresponds to Bolivia or Peru for example and It is very difficult to act or ask for a collaboration", he said Infobae a federal investigator.

It's a paradox. Judges, prosecutors and investigators know that mules are part of the lower layers of criminal gangs, but leaving them free is also a message of impunity for drug traffickers.

Usually people who are detected narcotics are accused of crimes of flagrante delictothey therefore obtain an abridged trial within a short period of time and a sentence not exceeding four years' imprisonment. After serving two-thirds of the sentence, they may be released or, in the case of foreigners, return to their country of origin under the sign of remoteness. However, the stigma of the prison remains.

Now Why does narco choose an ingested mule? The national gendarmerie seizes almost every week a lot of ten to a hundred pounds in double bottom of cars and trucks They enter the country by marches such as Villazón-Aguas Blancas in Salta, ingenious devices to try to cross the border.

However, according to officials familiar with these files, traffickers in many cases they prefer to introduce cocaine into the stomach of a poor alien, something that puts him at mortal risk: much cheaper to pay a thousand dollars to the mule than to face the long series of bribes and the chances of checks in the long distance, nearly 2,400 km from Bolivia, where the world's cheapest kilo of cocaine is, to the federal capital.

On the other hand, the mullet is not an organic part of the group, but contracted an opportunity.

The mule, in short, He does not know.