TRAVELING DOWN THE COCA TRAIL

Gallant Man Plans Book About Peru's Cocaine Trade.

When he is not working as an instructor at the Peruvian Air Force School of
Jungle Survival, Jeff Randall is researching his latest passion - Peru's
elusive cocaine trade - for a book he expects to release next year.

Randall has for more than six years split his time primarily between Peru
in South America and Gallant in western Etowah County. He already has
co-authored one book, "Adventure Travel in the Third World: Everything You
Need to Know to Survive in Remote and Hostile Destinations," with Mike
Perrin, a resident of Blaine, Tenn.

Both have "years of experience leading travelers deep into the wildest
cities and most rugged backcountry of the Third World," according to the
book's jacket description.

Randall is also a gear developer, a free-lance photographer and a travel
writer. A frequent contributor to Adventura Magazine, a publication devoted
to Latin American travel, Randall has made dozens of trips to almost every
country in Central and South America. According to his Adventura biography,
he spends much of his time "organizing film ventures, working with Special
Forces personnel during training adventures, instructing wilderness
survival courses and arranging and participating in training classes with
military and police organizations."

The cocaine trade Randall's work in Peru has allowed him to get a close
view of one of the country's most profitable businesses: The cocaine trade.
He recently returned to Alabama after a three-week trip where he worked
with the anti-narcotics police there. He was allowed to photograph the trip
and document his experiences about how coca is grown, produced into
cocaine, then smuggled all over the world.

During his recent stay in Tingo Maria in the Andean region of Peru, Randall
went on several operations, raids and counter-smuggling exercises.

"The day before we left, there was an assault on the road," he said. "Final
score: One bad guy dead from an AK47 round through the heart and two others
injured."

The roughly 28-mile road he speaks of begins in Tingo Maria and is referred
to as the "Road to Monzon," after its destination city. He said it's a
place known to the drug agents and the locals as "the Highway to Hell."

He called the area the "epicenter" of the narcotics smuggling now plaguing
Peru. The country, on the western edge of South America, has seen a
substantial increase in coca crops since the U.S. and Colombian governments
spent millions of dollars fighting the cocaine trade in Colombia.

"They've done so much coca eradication in Colombia that a lot of the
growing is going back to the Andes of Peru," he said.

Therefore, narco-terrorists and other smugglers have turned some of their
efforts to Peru. The problem, Randall said, is the Peruvian government
cannot totally eradicate the coca crop because so many residents depend on
it for their livelihood.

"If you put a lot of farmers out of business, you are looking at an
economic collapse for the entire country," he said. "What the government is
trying to do is to introduce new crops to take over for coca."

These crops include yucca, coffee and bananas.

Many farmers grow the coca plant, which can be harvested up to four times a
year, and sell it to the highest bidder: Whether for the cocaine trade or
for legal coca uses such as tea and medicinal purposes.

"It's a delicate battle going on," he said.

Cocaine is produced by taking the plant's leaves and adding a special
chemical, grown locally, which draws out the drug. Randall called it "a
simple process" that can be done in an outdoor jungle laboratory.

To combat the growing cocaine smuggling, the Peruvian police and agents
from the United States have been increasing their presence in problem areas.

Randall said police use simple tools such as a bicycle spoke converted into
a spike with a sharp spoon-shaped end. The spike is poked into goods
shipped in and out of the region to detect the presence of cocaine. Cocaine
is smuggled by such simple techniques as putting a false bed in the back of
a pickup truck or hollowing out an old television to stash drugs, he said.

Randall's Adventure Training classes with the Peruvian Air Force helped
him, Perrin and another colleague, Patricia Tadder, also of Gallant, build
a strong "working" relationship with the government of Peru.

"All three of us form Randall's Adventure Training," Randall said. "We are
the only registered agents of that school."

The school runs year-round for special forces officers, but when RAT puts a
seven-day class together, the school operates under its name.

"We work directly through the defense minister and the brass in Lima (the
capital) as far as the air force and the special operations crowd," Randall
said.

Through that relationship, Randall, a former law enforcement officer in
Alabama, has made friends and contacts with the national police, especially
in Tingo Maria. This led to his interest in the country's anti-narcotics
efforts.

Life and death Randall plans to title his book: "Highway to Hell, Life and
Death on the Elusive Coca Trail."

"It's going to detail every aspect of how cocaine has come to be," he said.
"Unlike a lot of fad drugs, cocaine has been around for eons and is still
the No. 1 smuggled drug in the world."

The book, he said, will detail the cocaine trade, from the plant growing,
to the processing, to the smuggling, to the efforts of the governments to
fight it, "all the way to where it comes up some fool's nose in the United
States."

Terrorist groups such as Shining Path have taken advantage of times when
the Peru government has become weak from a sagging economy, he said. He
suspects the group is heavily financing the current narcotics trade and is
responsible for recent bombings, murders and kidnappings.

"As an overall picture, Peru is 10 times safer now than it was 10 years
ago," he said. "The Peruvian government has done an exceptional job over
the last six or seven years to combat the narcotics problem."

Randall, who speaks several dialects of Spanish, said many of the farmers
and the smugglers he has interviewed are "good people" who do not use drugs
at all. The cocaine trade "is simple economics for them."

Monzon, he said, is almost completely controlled by the cocaine trade and
is almost devoid of outsiders. Other places, however, such as Tingo Maria,
are relatively safe.

Randall is confident the anti-narcotics task force, assisted by officers of
the U.S. and Peruvian governments, will take control of Monzon in the
coming months. The airport, he said, was recently retaken through their
efforts.

Randall said he will return to "beautiful" Peru soon. He also is planning
trips to Ecuador and Columbia to further his research. One of his friends,
Robert Young Pelton, author of the "World's Most Dangerous Places," was
kidnapped by a paramilitary group in Colombia for several days this year.
He was released unhurt.

Randall also plans to interview a retired customs agent from the United
States who is well-versed in the cocaine trade here.

Cocaine affects everyone, he said. It's one of the most addictive drugs in
the world because of its power and availability.

"Cocaine does prop up governments around the world," he said. "It does
corrupt. It's one of the most evil substances that has ever been put upon
mankind. It turns people into zombies. I've seen normal people get involved
in this industry and become nothing."

[PHOTO CAPTIONS]

Members of Peru's anti-narcotics police walk on the "Road to Monzon." The
road, according to Gallant resident Randall, is known by locals as the
"Highway to Hell" because of the region's violent cocaine trade.

The coca plant provides the main ingredient of cocaine. To extract the
drug, a substance is applied to the leaves. Zoom

Photos Courtesy of Jeff Randall

To see more photos of Peru's cocaine trade or to learn more about Randall's
travels visit his Web site at www.jungletraining.com.