Meet the Man Helping Peru's Foreign Drug Mules Get Home

Watch the VICE News documentary 'The New King of Coke' here.

Bishop Sean Walsh remembers standing at the window of his apartment, watching vagrants roam Lima's Parque Kennedy as they rummaged through trash cans for food.

"I was just looking out the window at the park, and I would see American-looking or European-looking men and women going through the rubbish bins," he told VICE News. Eventually the Eastern Catholic Church bishop went down to the park to investigate. "[When] I asked what brought them to Peru… they [said they] came to traffic [drugs] and were imprisoned. They were on parole and/or their parole was over, and they didn't know how to get home."

Walsh initially came to Peru from the United States as a missionary, but after witnessing "his neighbors on the street," he decided to make counseling foreign inmates and parolees in Peru his full-time job.

"They're savable — they can be rescued and become good productive citizens," he said. "They need to know that they have hope and a future, and I think that's the church's role more than the government's, because the government has to play the dog in this battle."

In photos: Greenpeace stunt damages 1,500-year-old Peruvian World Heritage Site. Read more here.

Although the government has laid down strict sentences for foreigners caught trafficking drugs — jail sentences and fines upwards of $3,000 — Walsh believes they should be given some clemency. And so Walsh functions as a facilitator between foreign embassies, local government, and incarcerated foreigners. He often writes letters to request early release on behalf of these individuals, and raises contributions for their airfare back to their home countries.

According to Walsh, there are about 1,500 foreigners imprisoned in Peru, almost all whom are there for drug trafficking. The minimum sentence for trafficking is six years and eight months, but as of September of this year, the law began to allow inmates to apply for early release, serving one-third of their sentence in prison and the remainder on parole. While on parole, however, they must still pay off the fines imposed when they were convicted.

"The fines would be fair if [the parolees] were millionaires, but they're not — they're people who did this because they're desperate," Walsh said.

For non-Spanish speaking foreigners stuck in Peru without identification cards or work visas, bureaucratic challenges make living any kind of a normal life extremely difficult. Gaining permission to leave the country can take years.

In August 2013, Peru received international attention after British citizens Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum got caught with 24 pounds of cocaine in their luggage at Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport. The cocaine was valued at more than $2 million. Reid and McCollum, both 20 years old at the time, faced possible sentences of 15 years in prison, but after cooperating with investigators, their sentences were reduced to the minimum 6 years and 8 months.

A parade of narco-tied politicians are winning elections in Peru. Read more here.

The two are now serving their terms at Ancon 2 prison in Lima. According to the Guardian, the prison houses about 325 foreign prisoners, about 100 of whom are women serving convictions for drug charges. It was recently confirmed that McCollum would be extradited to her native Northern Ireland and serve the rest of her prison term there. Reid's family has similarly petitioned the Peruvian government with the hope of having their daughter serve the rest of her sentence in Scotland.

It's good news for those two women, but Walsh hopes Peru will reassess the system as a whole. "The embassies have been meeting with judges," he said. "In no way is society served well by these people remaining in Peru any longer then is absolutely necessary."

Additional reporting by Kaj Larsen

Follow Brooke Workneh on Twitter: @brookeworkneh

Watch the VICE News documentary 'The New King of Coke' here.