Gang violence holds Peru with high blackmail and killings

George Tikhada was studying the charred remains of the bus in the parking lot near the recycling work in Lima. It was fire overnight, while the residents said it was revenge on a gang that shakes local bus companies.

Mr. Tegada, 50, has lost the number of attacks like this that struck his neighborhood last year. The explosives exploded in Bodgas. Restaurants are filled with bullets. Its recycling is supervised and damaged after the gang’s request was ignored to pay it $ 530 per month.

It could have been worse. He said that a pharmacist was shot dead behind his store office, and many store owners hid.

“This was a quiet area,” said Mr. Tegada. “Now we live in fear here.”

An increasing number of Peruvian people feel the same way. The South America is wrestling with an extraordinary crime wave, fueled by an increase in extortion plans, as gangs exercise increasing control of urban areas.

Blackfield reports have switched throughout the country since 2017, from a few hundred a year to more than 2000 per month this year, according to the national police. The number of killings by men who have been largely employed in recent years has jumped, statistics indicate.

The demands of protection fees for victims are received through WhatsApp messages, handwritten notes, or personal visits. Revenge is fulfilled for those who fail to pay through the attacks of Dynamite or Arsen, or men armed with motorcycles who kill victims in the streets.

The crime epidemic immersed the authorities and threatens to transform the relatively quiet Latin America into a source of regional instability. The central bank has warned that the extortion epidemic suffocates economic activity, and experts say it contributes to increasing immigration.

“It seems that Peru is quickly climbing the ranks of the most dangerous countries in Latin America,” said Eduardo Moncada, a political scientist at Columbia University who focuses on crime in Latin America. “This is a difficult situation to be very difficult to climb.”

So far this year, two journalists have been shot by the militants in public places. In January, Dynamite was detonated in the regional prosecutor’s office, injuring two people. In March, two gunmen shot the tourist bus of the famous Kombiya Group, killing its main singer, Paul Flores.

After that, his fellow musicians, including Christian Yippin, the main singer of the Compass band, narrated their operations with blackmail.

“It is the whole country that suffers from this,” Mr. Yaibin told reporters. “We are all in Peru who have to go out to earn a living and do not know if we’ll go home alive.”

In one of the worst episodes of violence, the bodies of 13 gold mines were discovered in May at a site run by the largest gold photography company in Peru, a massacre that the authorities say was organized by a gang leader.

It seems that the efforts made by the President of Peru, Dina Polarrt, to address violence by imposing emergency cases, did not do much to control the rampant crime.

Mrs. Polarrt, who was in power for three years, suggested that the high levels of crime are partly as a result of large numbers of Venezuelan immigrants who have reached the country in recent years, although there is no evidence that they are committing a crime at a higher rate.

The Minister of Interior in Peru and the police rejected requests for an interview.

Mrs. Polwart has pledged to deploy a tougher campaign against criminal groups. “Our message is clear,” she told reporters in April. “Under this government, the crime does not have a place and this is our struggle every day.”

Dr. Moncada, who wrote a book on blackmail in Latin America, said that blackmail appeals to gangs because it provides a steady flow of criticism with help in controlling the region. “It allows you to hire the locals to become a kind of your eyes and ears,” he said. “You are somewhat known to the majority of the population through this extractive relationship, and this gives you a lot of power.”

Blackmaker also requires frequent use of violence to plant fear and ensure compliance. Some neighborhoods were shaken in Lima with a crime that schools have turned into seasons online.

Those who collide with the most difficult through blackmail are not wealthy – who live in safe pockets and can afford private security – but poor and small business owners who depend on the police strength are suffering from employee deficiency and have also faltered due to corruption.

Dozens of police officers were arrested last year and were charged with working with gangs or weapons and ammunition for trafficking, according to local news reports.

“The strategy of criminals today is to attack the most vulnerable areas. And why are the most vulnerable areas? Because there is impunity there,” said Jesus Maldonado, the mayor of the largest province in Lima, San Juan de Lorganchu. Mr. Maldonado said it is home to more than 1.2 million people, in the province there are 600 police officers, much less than the richer neighborhoods.

Almost, any general confrontation process that deals with criticism can fall prey to extortion. According to what was reported, the nightclubs and night clubs were targeted, and even the community soup kitchens and dog shelters were targeted.

Lima’s taxi driver said that he earns $ 11 to 19 dollars a day, but he puts 1.30 dollars to blackmail. He said that he knows at least five drivers colleagues who were shot to resist their demands.

Erika Solis, a crime researcher at the Pontifical Catholic Catholic University, said the violence began to really pick up at the beginning of the Corona virus in 2020, when Lockdowns emptied the streets and led the criminals to the axis from theft to blackmail using WhatsApp.

Experts said that members of the Venezuelan gang who arrived as part of the migration wave of that troubled nation also added the crime problem.

Nearly a decade of political turmoil, and the government and corruption have spent a high -level level that affected the government’s ability to provide services, including the effective police. Peru has done the course through five presidents in the past five years.

Critics say that Mrs. Polarrt and the legislators contributed to the crime crisis by pushing the laws aimed at protecting themselves from judicial prosecution. Mrs. Polies is under investigation for potential charges of corruption and human rights violations. I have denied any violations.

One is a relatively new law that makes it difficult to keep people accused of arresting crimes before the trial and limits the prison sentence to criminals for the first time.

“He is out of control,” said Marietta Felipe, who lives in Lima, about the crime. Her father, Luis Felipe, 62, was one of four people who shot them on a small bus in October. He recently retired from the police force after 32 years and was heading home when a man climbed to him and began shooting.

Referring to the duration of her father as an officer, Mrs. Felipe said, “At all of that time, nothing happened to him and then we lose it like this.”

Carlos Science, a textile manufacturer in Lima, closed his store in December 2023 after a gang requested more than $ 5,000 pictures, showing that he was monitored. Now, he runs a workshop without public banners. He also bought a gun.

“What happens if they come after me again?” He said. “Who will protect me?”