It may not be the best label a country could get, but Peru's cocaine business is actually highlighting the country on the map. According to the VICE News, Peru is now known as one of Latin America's biggest producers of cocaine, and if the business continues to flourish, they may eventually take over Colombia.

Peru's thriving cocaine business came to light when Gerson Galvez Calle alias Caracol was nabbed over allegations of running the notorious drug ring, Barrio King. His relationship with the cartel landed him in jail, but was released later on an unspecified bail. Since then, questions about the intensity of Peru's cocaine production rose to a certain level of alarm.

Security Analyst Jaime Antezana said, "Everyone here knows it but no one wants to admit it. When I say everyone, I am talking about the establishment. The general population gets it. This is a country where thousands of people, maybe even two million people, live from the cocaine trade in some way."

Peru trails Colombia in the list of the highest producers of coca, the main ingredient in making cocaine. In 2014, Peru was able to cultivate a total of 42,900 hectares of coca, with Colombia taking the top spot with over 69,000 hectares of coca plantation.

According to the news outlet, fifty percent of Peru's coca plantation is located in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene River near the Bolivian border. Antezana hopes that the government could get to the root of the plantation's financer and not just low-level drug mules. He said, "The mules and backpackers are the main focus of anti-narcotics strategy. They are on the bottom rung of the ladder, the lumpen proletariat of the industry. Why haven't more big players been taken down in Peru, like in Colombia or Mexico?"

Meanwhile, the Belfast Telegraph reported that Michaella McCollum, a notorious drug mule who was in jail in Peru after trying to smuggle cocaine, was recently reported to have been sick while in prison. Authorities, on the other hand, downplayed the severity of her illness, saying that if it was life-threatening, she should already been brought to a nearby hospital.

In 2013, McCollum, along with her friend, were sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for trying to smuggle £1.5 million worth of cocaine from Lima to Madrid.