Some people did not learn the lesson of the pandemic and they are paying the price.
In 2021 a Danish 21 year old woman named Anna Søby Poulsen passed her gymnasium exam with top grade. A year later she was arrested with the possibility of facing 15 years in prison. Her crime. Buying a local snack in Peru which she did not use before she traveled to Panama where she was arrested. She got out in the end but are now facing a life-long debt.
The lesson she should have learned is that the era of turism is over. The new world is about remaing at home and work on how to improve the country you are living in. The war between Russia and Ukraine not to mention the pandemic, displayed our vulnerability in terms of getting food and other resources to Denmark. A lot of Danes cannot afford food, electricity and heating.
The young woman bought Coca-leaves in Peru where they are sold openly on the streets. Coca-leaves were the exact reason that the Spanish people who came to South America were able to transform wilderness into the civilized countries as they enbled the locals to be more motivated. Today coca-leaves are enjoyed as snack in Peru and other countries in South America.
That is not the case in Panama which is a country that has reinvented itself as the banking headquater in that area. Firms and private citizens have moved their money to Panama thanks to the level of transparacy in their banking sector. The people employed in their banks do not need coca leaves to function. Not even when they expanded the channel which the United States basically gifted them. In fact they own their entire independence to the United States. Otherwise they would basically only have been a province in another country none would have looked at.
So Coca leaves are illegal in Panama because they agreed to join the United States war on drugs coming from poor people. In the United States it is only legal to kill people using drugs if the drugs are manifactored by big medical companies. Everything that looks poor and mexican or colored are criminalized.
All this the Danish woman did not know and that is a sign that young Danes are not taught properly to mentally shut them off from the surrounding world. We already forgot how hard it was to get the Danes back home when the Chinese illness spread all over the world.
The young woman by accident left some Coca leaves in her luggage and the police in Panama arrested her. It took a lot of legal aid to escape the 15 years in prison but she managed and returned back to Denmark with a huge debt of 1,2 million DKK. The courts and officials in Panama needed a little sidemoney to make the prison conditions survivable and lawyers are not that cheap in Panama either because they are used to bill banks helping them to hide money from the tax authorities abroad.
Question is: Should we help this young woman who know have put up a side to get help handling her legal debt? Should we not use this oppertunity to warn young Danes from going abroad instead?
Peru might look fine but it is not a tourist destination when they do not warn people in the airport against buying any kind of souvenir in their country. With this widespead use of coca leaves traces of it would be basically on every item you buy.
Panama is fine for banking business if you want to keep just a little of the money you earn instead of paying it all in taxes which goes to currupt politicians somewhere in the EU or wasted on various projects made by the Danish state. A woman working in the state administration were able to cheat out 120 million DKK from the state because the money were not missed by anyone. A lot of projects are expected failures even when the politicians assign money for them. The politicians just want photos taken when the projects starts up and then they forget everything about achieving successes. Many then transport their hard earned money to Panama. It is their decision. I will not condomn them even if I am not in the position to earn that much.
But both countries should never be regarded as destinations for traveling. You do not need to see them. Just use Google maps and street views instead.
I will put the website of this woman as well as some articles about her below. I will not urge you to use money on her but otherwise I will not discourage you. Everyone are allowed to waste their money. They have earned them. They can spend them. Just remember to stop and sit down. Should you not have learned a bit about the damages caused by tourism? Should you not stay home?
Sources:
- Hjælp Anna og hendes familie (Projekt Anna - In Danish language)
- Fik mors hue på med et 12-tal: - Det har været svært at finde motivationen (Fyens Stiftstidende - in Danish language)
- Ville bare have en souvenir med hjem: 21-årige Anna anholdt for narkosmugling og smidt i fængsel i Panama (Avisen Danmark - in Danish language)
