2024-02-17 19:50:23
While the seventh declaration of emergency in Pataz – this time with the Armed Forces in charge of internal order – seeks to confront the overflow of illegal mining exacerbated by the intervention of transnational criminal organizations, in Peru there are at least seven other risk scenarios that test the government’s ability to confront increasingly violent crime.
Read also: Chancay Megaport: everything behind the work
The first is the future inauguration of the Chancay Megaport, located 80 km north of Metropolitan Lima, in the province of Huaral, which is projected to be the main port in Latin America and whose start of operations is planned for November of this year. According to the Organized Crime Trends and Alerts 2024 report, from the Institute of Criminology and Violence Studies (ICEV), which warns of seven latent risk scenarios, the megaproject is an attraction for “cocaine and fentanyl trafficking among South America and Asia” and the crime around the commercial and population growth that it will bring with it.
For the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), this megaproject, led by the Chinese company Cosco Shipping, is key for international trade and will be a hub that will redistribute cargo from the countries of Chile, Ecuador and Colombia.
These warnings are not foreign to the police themselves and this was recognized by the head of the Port Anti-Drug Division, Colonel Luis Bolaños Melgarejo, during the last session of the Chancay Project Special Commission in Congress, on February 6. “The multipurpose terminal is a great opportunity for the country, but also for criminal networks, family clans and organizations that seek to transport cocaine alkaloid to the Asian continent and from there to Peru, chemical inputs for the production of cocaine and fentanyl,” he said. he.
Added to this is the projected population growth. The Ministry of Housing estimates that the demand for housing might multiply up to five times only in the districts of Chancay and Aucallama, adjacent to the megaport. Nicolás Zevallos, director of the ICEV, explains to El Comercio that precisely the factor of urban expansion without a plan is one of the explanations for the security problems in cities on the north coast such as Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura and Chimbote, where there is a “cluster ” of organized crime.
“It is not only the megaport, but also the industrial zone that will accompany it. Population growth will be explosive, an increase in real estate and business projects is expected. But the small north already has homicide rates close to Central America with between 20 and 30 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants. It is already a place with a high security risk and a very large global commercial dynamizer will be built without any contingency measures,” he warns.
The regional governor of Lima, Rosa Vásquez, agrees that the risks are exacerbated by the gap in communication and basic services faced by the northern provinces of the region. “Crime has increased. We have high rates of insecurity in Barranca, Huaura and Huaral, we need immediate intervention to address this problem that will definitely be accentuated when the megaport is inaugurated. The communication routes are not prepared to withstand the estimated high traffic, the hospital is collapsed and there are areas that do not have telephone networks,” she explains to this newspaper.
One response from the Executive is the announcement of the future construction of a police complex that, despite the risks, will not be ready this year. PNP Crnl Eduardo Maguiño, head of Administration of the Lima Police Region, confirmed that construction would begin in January of next year and delivery in December 2026. “The budget is not currently available. It is S/84.5 million for this to be viable. For now, S/1.9 million would be needed to start with the technical file, which would be worked on this year,” he said before the Congressional commission. El Comercio asked Mininter for more details of the project, but at the closing of the note we did not receive a response.
In addition, to improve the two police stations in the area of influence, Chancay and Aucallama, they need another S/17 million, according to Maguiño. Both are in the “process of resolution of creation and legal physical sanitation.”
On the company side, Cosco Shipping will build the Deconcentrated Port Anti-Drug Department, where the Chancay anti-drug divers squad and the anti-drug canine police will also operate within the terminal facilities. In addition, it has a viable pre-investment study for Comprehensive Emergency Response Action in security.
For Vásquez, a positive aspect is that an independent police division was created in Huaral (last November), but personnel and infrastructure are needed. “The appointment of a general for Lima Norte was accepted in such a way that it is not necessary to travel to Lima. We have made progress in that, but we need more police officers. They have given us only 150 of the 400 requested,” he adds.
The governor requests that a High Level Intergovernmental Commission be established to address the challenge comprehensively.
In the opinion of the former director of the National Police of Peru (PNP) Eduardo Pérez Rocha, the risk for the new businesses that will appear in the area will not decrease as long as logistics and intelligence are not guaranteed for the National Police. “The police weapons are 30 years old, there are no patrol cars, intelligence only works when it has a budget. Extortion alone from 2022 to 2023 increased by 68% throughout the country and now there are kidnappings that were no longer seen. There is no Executive planning for citizen security, only failures with states of emergency are repeated,” he believes.
Other risk scenarios
If Chancay alone represents an enormous challenge, the increasing presence of transnational crime puts projects in different regions on alert. The Ministry of the Interior’s own Safe Peru Plan, published last January, recognizes that the post-pandemic national criminal scenario has been transformed by “the extension and consolidation of transnational criminal organizations” dedicated to illegal markets such as illicit drug trafficking, illegal mining and human trafficking.
Zevallos warns that two other new risk scenarios are the ports on the north coast, such as Paita, and the threat that crime will worsen in the face of mining projects in Arequipa and Puno, with a situation similar to Pataz. “Paita reports the presence of Ecuadorian operators such as Los Lobos and Los Tiguerones. The risk is that these projects will be new hubs since Ecuador and President Daniel Noboa are taking more drastic measures once morest cocaine trafficking,” he explains.
Latent risk scenarios 2024
The Institute of Criminology and Violence Studies estimates seven scenarios surrounding organized crime that deserve immediate attention
2. North coast ports
Risk exacerbated by the strategies of the Ecuadorian government in Guayaquil once morest drug trafficking. In Paita, operations by transnational criminal organizations such as Los Lobos, Los Choneros and Los Tiguerones are already reported.
3. Mining projects
The infiltration of illegal miners and criminal organizations dedicated to extortion is noted, with a similar situation in Pataz, in Amazonas, Arequipa and Puno mining projects.
4. Native communities
Presence of settlers and criminal actors, especially associated with illegal mining, illegal logging and cocaine. It is warned that threats to the leaders of indigenous peoples are becoming more acute, with lethal consequences.
5. Vraem
In recent years, it has been possible to dismantle the remnants of Sendero Luminoso that operate in the main cocaine production area of the country, but it is warned that “the power vacuum” might be occupied by other criminal actors, especially linked to crime. transnational organized.
6. Frontera on
Confluence of exit routes for drugs, weapons and contraband on the southern border.
7. Triple frontera
Confluence of illegal routes plus transnational criminal operators on the triple northern border.
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