(Reuters) – Three accused leaders of Peru’s Shining Path were charged in New York on Wednesday with running a drug trafficking ring to fund the insurgent group, federal authorities announced.
The three Peruvian citizens face terror, narcotics and weapons charges, each of which carries the possibility of life in prison, U.S. authorities said.
The Shining Path, or Sendero Luminoso, has waged acts of violence in Peru since approximately 1980, funded in part by cocaine trafficking, according to a statement by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official Michele Leonhart.
“These defendants are leaders of a murderous paramilitary organization, and they themselves ordered ambushes that killed nearly two dozen Peruvian soldiers and police officers,” Bharara said in a statement.
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