Peruvian police dress as Santa Claus to raid drug dealers’ house

Police officers dressed up as Santa Claus to raid the home of suspected drug dealers. Image / ShanghaiEye

Police in Peru have been making a list of who’s been naughty and nice before raiding drug dealers’ homes while dressed as Santa Claus.

Santa - a Peruvian undercover agent - can be seen in video released by the officers using a sledgehammer to batter down a drug dealers’ front door in Huaral, north of Lima, according to the UK’s Metro.

Other officers, meanwhile, use a ladder to sneak on to the roof of the house.

Two men were allegedly caught selling cocaine and cannabis from the home.

Santa can then be seen standing over the man as he is arrested and officers comb through the house.

Officers then also use the video to show off some of the drugs they allegedly found in the house.

A 32-year-old and a 25-year-old were reportedly detained at the scene.

It’s not the first time that Peruvian police officers have used disguises to make drugs arrests.

In 2020, officers from the undercover unit Grupo Terma also made headlines for making a cocaine, marijuana and firearms bust in the capital of Lima in which four people were arrested, according to CNN.

In that video, Santa and one of his elves rush up to a front door and smash their way in with a sledgehammer.

Then they team up to tackle a suspect to the ground where they cuff and arrest him, as Santa’s beard falls off in the process.

Grupo Terna also made a well-publicised raid in 2016 dressed as Santa Claus and elves, and have been known to disguise themselves as homeless people.

“Agents from Grupo Terna disguise themselves in order to carry out their police operations without being discovered,” a Peru police spokesperson told CNN in 2020.

The suspects had been videotaped selling drugs outside his home near a school, the police spokesperson said.