A ‘hero’ cop gets lost in Peru’s narco war
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Version 0 of 1. TALAVERA, Peru — Johnny Vega rarely carried his 9-mm pistol when he wasn’t on duty. He wishes he had that day. On that morning of Aug. 20, 2014, the narcotics cop dropped his son Juan at nursery school and walked to the main square in the highlands town of Talavera, where he was well known. Defying death threats, he led a team of officers who made record drug seizures even as Peru became the world’s top cocaine producer. In a place where police are as likely to take bribes as to make arrests, Vega was a hero, three times named police officer of the year. As the Andean sun was burning away the dawn’s chill, Vega noticed a tall young man strolling by and wondered if he knew him. Then the man walked by again, stopped and leveled a silencer-equipped Bersa at the cop’s head. Vega jumped to his feet and the bullet hit just below his solar plexus. He dashed for a nearby taxi stand, zig-zagging to make himself a smaller target. The hit man kept firing but did not give chase. “Help! I’m a cop. I’ve been shot!” Vega shouted. A woman in a cab pulled the bleeding man inside, and they sped to a hospital. In the operating room, surgeons sewed his intestines back together, though part of his colon was lost. The next morning, he was flown to Lima in a plane owned by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Lima-based drug agents quickly arrested the alleged hit man and the narco accused of offering him $10,000 to kill Vega. Accolades for the hero cop poured in. U.S. Ambassador Brian Nichols sent a letter commending Vega. Then-Interior Minister Daniel Urresti promised that Vega’s valor would be rewarded. “We are going to promote him and give him all he needs to recover and continue with his work,” Urresti said. The youngest of nine, Johnny Vega was in high school when his father, the village leader, was seized by Shining Path rebels and disappeared in 1987. Johnny joined the army, and searched for his father’s remains. Not until a decade later, after the insurgents were vanquished, were they found. By then, Johnny was a cop and Andahuaylas was becoming a major drug-trafficking corridor. “Andahuaylas is like a sieve. The drugs go in and out every which way,” said Vega, who is tall with a square Andean nose. In 2009, the regional police chief tapped Vega to form a 15-man squad focused on narcotics. Vega borrowed vehicles and flak vests, scrounged handcuffs and flashlights and even created a night shift since the traffickers operated mostly under the cover of darkness. His agents seized more than a half ton of coca paste the first three years, making more than 60 arrests. No other provincial unit did such work, narcotics prosecutor Elvira Aldana said. “He was the only cop sticking his neck out.” Death threats started coming by phone and text message. “Just as you have your snitches, so do we,” said one. “Watch out for your cute little children.” Vega did not ease up. In early 2014, the Lima-based narcotics police set out to take down Andahuaylas’ biggest drug clans. Vega was the only local officer they trusted. They seized nearly 400 kilograms of coca paste, most of it traced back to alleged capo Dimas Urrutia. Four days after Urrutia’s arrest, Vega was shot. In September 2014, after nearly a month in the hospital, Vega was promised a promotion and a transfer to Lima, where he would have 24 months to recover, or face mandatory retirement. But no stipend, lodging or transportation were offered. He would manage on his $1,000 monthly salary. His wife, Yesi, four months pregnant, returned home — a 20-hour bus ride away — to care for their two boys and resume teaching. She asked for a transfer to Lima. But nothing was done. Vega joined his 84-year-old mother in a dusty hillside Lima slum, cooking and cleaning for himself. But soon his wound became infected. For 10 months, he would wear a colostomy bag while waiting to reattach his colon. His wife, back in Talavera, was left managing the death threats that still came her way. Late one night, a dead cat was hurled through Yesi’s front window. “It had papers jammed in its mouth as if to say, ‘This is how you will all die,’” Yesi recalled, her voice cracking. “I never told my husband. He wasn’t well.” After Vega was shot, the cocaine trade roared back in the valley. Not a single kilo of coca paste was seized last year and about two dozen local cops are under investigation for money-laundering, narcotics prosecutor Lincoln Fuentes said. Vega, 46, has begun to reconcile himself to the idea he may not heal in time to avoid forced retirement in August. Yesi is heartbroken to see her husband still so unwell. “We are simply demanding what my husband by rights should be getting,” Yesi said. “In his time, he was the news of the day. But now he’s been forgotten.” ___ Frank Bajak is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/frank-bajak . Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |