A Lithuanian who fell into the traps of the international drug business: seduced by 5,000 litas, he ruined his life for himself and his family.

Lima’s Ancon 2 men’s prison is a bastion of doomed drug mules in the desert, an hour’s drive from the Peruvian capital. It is not the most welcoming place. Long long corridors with concrete walls. You walk among them and see nothing around. The territory is divided into three separate sectors. The first is for young people, the second for the elderly and the third, where the Lithuanian Virginijus Černiauskas is also closed, only for foreigners. It was specifically conceived in an attempt to protect criminals from other countries from all kinds of local groups. Most foreigners in the sector are Mexicans, Colombians, and Americans. Slightly less European, but even three Lithuanians among them.

“It just caught our eye then. What you see now is just the beautiful side, the real reality, nobody wants to show journalists all that fuss,” says Virginijus, a convicted drug courier from Daugai near Alytus. Virgis has now 41 years old, when he was 30 years old at the international airport of the Peruvian capital, Lima, Jorge Chávez. In other words, the most beautiful year of his youth was, as he says, “asshole.” A completely worn comparison, but it is Impossible not to think about it. He wasted his youth on about five thousand litas, which he promised him for a well-done operation. When you think about it, it’s only fifteen hundred euros. Both razors in Norway win in a month or even faster.

In Lithuania Virgis was a builder, never complaining that he wins poorly or receives few orders. On the contrary, sometimes they didn’t even have time to spin. “But to collect five thousand litas, it took a lot of problems. A month and a half of work, also, it is not so easy in construction, there is a lack of strength there after a day,” says Virgis. So, I was looking a quicker and easier way to earn money. And that’s when old Šiauliai acquaintances mingled their way, who offered to take a travel related job. “It won’t be sad, more than one will work, there will be two men Druskininkai together, “he was drawn to the representatives of the drug trafficking mafia, Lithuanians.

Peru has recently been called a major gateway for drugs from South America to America and Europe in the press pages of the world. It was there that Virginia got her first “business trip” with two “colleagues.” They did not know them before, they met them while traveling during those long hours, on planes with three transfers. This was Virgio’s first such long journey. Later, when he still had nothing with him, he felt a pleasant emotion, a desire for adventure, in his stomach.

Okay, it all sounds very simple. He had to fly to the Peruvian capital, go to the indicated address, collect the product, 1 kilogram of cocaine, and then carefully pack it, hide the product and fly home. The Šiauliai people were already waiting here, like carnivores. They probably would have run into champagne at the Vilnius airport. But he did not agree.

Law enforcement officials call Virgis live containers. It sounds unattractive, but it indicates very accurately the role of these people in the drug business. Your job is to transport the package from point A to point B. Inside, the cocaine is tightly compressed and evacuated, then slipped, inserted into a condom, which a living container has to swallow by mouth, or elsewhere. sure to make it easier to slide. Men do this through their buttocks, and women often take advantage of the intimate location.

DELFI I have already written on trips that the Lima airport is full of security, police, customs, their dogs and even stealthy forensic agents. Nowhere else in the world have I seen such a check. Even in Israel, where they closely observe everything and carry out small surveys for each traveler, it is not as serious as in Lima.

Although I was not wearing anything prohibited, but when I saw so many inspectors, I was overwhelmed by an inexplicable fear. Therefore, it is even difficult to think about what those who carry cocaine with them should feel. For many, the heart of emotion should jump like this.

Live containers are often more difficult to catch because the drugs do not emit an odor on their bodies that could be smelled by patrol dogs. The four-legged patrols elude and smell every suitcase, every backpack. And such a Virgius will not enter the stomach. But there are other ways that a naive Lithuanian did not think. Usually no one thinks, and that’s pretty strange.

Officials fighting drug traffickers say the most stupid betrayal of naive newcomers to work is their travel documents. Well, think for yourself. A 30-year-old man travels from a small Lithuanian there, on the outskirts of Europe. There are few or no travel stamps in that man’s passport. Well, you see he travels so little from his edge. From the outfit, from the face, that traveler does not seem an entrepreneur. One can predict that he came to South America a long time ago, putting the euro against the euro, because apparently he had a great dream to come here. But it is illogical that this person, who travels once or twice a day, Peru, in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, stays not for a week, nor for ten days, well, not even for five days, but Just For One Night.

Drug couriers generally fly, spend the night, pick up the “product” the next day, and immediately fly home to the airport. When customs officials at the airport ask “what did you do to Peru?”, The couriers say a single word “we traveled.” The saddest thing is that a frequent courier plunges headlong into all this, not even tired of wondering what is beautiful and interesting in that country, so if the customs officer asks about the impressions, about the places seen, the answer logic probably doesn’t sound.
Of course, everything I’m writing to you now, the clients, the drug barons, and the baronesses, they don’t explain to their workers. “You just fly, it will be very easy,” they say.

The living container Virgis thought that, so their journey ended very sadly. Because he was detained along with two other compatriots and all of them had a kilogram of white powder, it was an aggravating circumstance, which means that the men were involved in organized crime. Such are punished more severely, without mercy. This was received by the three Lithuanians fifteen years later.

The painful and sad story of an Alytus builder. “I flew here to earn money for home repairs and new furniture. I did everything for my wife and baby,” he says, sitting in the prison yard. We are surrounded by a bloated little Hungarian, the same, a drug courier. without success. “My friend here, all Europeans are together, we are friends. We try not to get into trouble, “Virgis explains. He doesn’t hide the fact that there are many criminal groups that operate in prison, distribute drugs, and do other black jobs. For many, it’s a way to earn money while you’re locked up behind bars. But At the same time, it’s a ticket to a longer year in prison. That’s right, many people get an additional two or five years. A total of twenty. We have so many cold-blooded killers in Lithuania. And some don’t even get that much.

The most painful thing for Virgis was that while he was in prison: his wife and son had difficult days, they did not last in Alytus, finances began to falter, so they emigrated to Scotland. “When I flew to Peru, my son was only 3 years old, now he is 13 years old and when I am released he will be 18 years old, an adult child,” he says in a sad voice.
Unfortunately, nothing can be done. He is sure that he will not be released before, because that is simply not the case in Peru. He asked to be transferred to Lithuania, wrote several letters, but no one answered. Our country does not yet have prisoner extradition agreements with South American countries, so the process is quite complicated.

Lucky Laimis: This is the name of another Lithuanian in prison, always smiling Laimis Genys from Kaišiadorys district, Saulučiai village. It is true, fortunately, her story has nothing to do, on the contrary: sadness and self-destruction are hidden behind it.

Fortunately, they sit a long way from Virgio, and they’re not even familiar, so they can’t comfort each other. On the other side of Peru, high in the Andes, in the ancient capital of the Inca Empire, Cusco, is the Penal Penal Cusco, which can remind the first-time visitor of a strange city of convicts behind large fences.

The action there is chaotic, the movement on the prison streets is bigger than on a normal work day in Vilnius or Kaunas. I’m not lying: convicts walk from one extreme to the other, someone runs and screams, something moves like a cripple, and the strangest thing is that there are all kinds of cafes and bars in that prison. Of course alcohol-free, but you can buy lemonades, juices, fries, salads, even chicken fillets, of course, smokers. Illegally under the table, even “grass”. The prisoners do not hide it at all: “Of course we have, we buy, we smoke,” he says. The prison administration denies this, assuming: “No, no, everything is under our control, we have nothing dirty, everything is in order here.” What to believe, dear reader, choose for yourself.

There are many small factories, workshops, sawmills, and workshops in this prison. Prisoners make furniture, interior details, tourist souvenirs, and sew clothing. It works a lot, clearly earns little, but it’s still this one. Lucky Laimis from Kaišiadorys also works: he makes picture frames and mirrors. In this way, he collects between twenty and thirty euros a month, and his mother, who he loves, transfers another forty to him. With this money, a man who has been incarcerated for seven years is trying to turn. Of course, it is not easy because you have to pay for everything. When he was arrested, he had nothing with him, only a suitcase with 3 kilograms of cocaine. So when you ended up in prison, you had to buy clothes, hygiene products, tastier food, because the one you give him in the canteen has a strange smell and taste that you are not attracted to. “You can’t even be lazy in prison, because otherwise you will fall apart, there will be nothing good,” says Laimis as soon as he picks up Lithuanian words. You have already forgotten your mother tongue because you don’t use it at all. Not with whom.

Do not attack to condemn the poor convict, rather try to embody his situation. In South America, everyone speaks only Spanish. Television, radio – in Spanish. Books: in Spanish, English and there are still Russians.

Of course, Laimis did not pay in Spanish, it was a big problem. He felt so “lost in translation”, but over the years he made his way, hitting one word at a time and now please speak the best possible Spanish. “I even started thinking in Spanish, I think for myself, I haven’t heard Lithuanian words in seven years,” he explains. There are no compatriots in the prison where it is closed. It is true that behind the fence, two girls were imprisoned in the women’s sector. Laimis sent them letters with them and received a dictionary of “Lithuanian-Spanish” gifts from the girls. But those drug couriers, already released, have received forgiveness from the President of Peru. Yes, Laimis was left alone. Trying to make friends with Russians, Latvians, Ukrainians.

Throughout that period, happiness has never been visited by anyone. This is probably the cruelest fact in my history to me. You can only imagine how he had to react when the prison administration reported nothing from anywhere that the visitors had arrived. “How? WHO? With what? With me? Which visitors? When? Now?” These are completely natural questions.

Apparently, for a second, the hope of seeing loved ones, perhaps siblings, perhaps a mother, perhaps an ex-girlfriend. But no, they did not come, just journalists from Lithuania. For a second, Laimis froze, found no words, and even said “hello” with difficulty. Then we warm up and talk more.

Fortunately, he turned thirty this year, and when he was detained by airport officials, he was only 23 years old. Naive, young student. He liked to catch smoke from the “grass”, many people say he is innocent, harmless, but it was through this hobby that he got here. It turns out that there is a plan to attract naive, money-hungry boys and girls. It doesn’t sound very complicated. The most naive and easy-money “grass” lovers are simply selected for this job.

Those who smoke “weed” for a long time, many years, and buy from a “dealer,” earn the trust of their supplier, make a little connection. So it was with happiness. I thought the friend was that man from Kaunas. Therefore, when he offered a “good and easy job,” Laimis became interested. Even more because he said he would pay as much money for that job as the Kaišiadorys did not even dream of: 24 thousand litas. He took 3 kilograms of cocaine from Peru to the partners of this “businessman” in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. There they were already in tongues waiting for our Lithuanian.

Nothing failed Laim as airport officials were already waiting for him. An ambush was organized. As the convict now explains, someone betrayed him as if something had changed. It is difficult to discover the truth because nobody says that, the sources do not betray.

He simply grabbed the suitcase from Laim’s hand, turned it over to his side, confiscated the cocaine, and closed it to the poor for a long time. “I was hoping to get four years, but after that they told me I could get eleven. But the final gave eight. Years left, ”he says with an unmistakable smile.

All these years, Lucky Laimis has been constantly writing all kinds of letters and requests to the Peruvian authorities, thinking that perhaps he will regret it, after all, he behaves exemplary and does not commit any crime. But no one reacts. “I wanted to make money and I ruined my life,” he says. He dreams of going back to Lithuania. It is true that there are few waiting for it. Only mom and cousin, the only two who did not condemn or communicate. Sometimes they are called after receiving an illegal mobile phone, because they do not “connect” to Lithuania from the public phone.

You can watch exclusive interviews with both prisoners, Virgis and Lucky Laimis, on the show “Orijus Reis”. The program also includes images of South American prisons, the daily lives of convicts and their problems.