During the course of 2009, 16 elderly and nine children have been caught acting as mules to transport drugs into and out of Colombian prisons.
According to the Anti-Narcotics Police, drug gangs use the elderly and children because if caught they do not serve time in the same manner as common citizens, and are protected by a Code of Criminal Procedure, reported Caracol Radio.
Colonel José Olmedo Piedrahita said that 16 elderly and nine children “have been captured over the course of the year, and the children have been handed over to the minors police who work with Family Welfare.”
“They are deceived by promises of travel, they are told that they will be sent on a trip to relax, and many of them fall for these lies,” said Piedrahita.
He said that elderly traffickers usually smuggled a kilogram of narcotics. “They’re elderly, terminally ill, or divorced or separated, without primary caregivers. So drug traffickers exploit the situation to use them to carry out drugs,” said the Colonel.