Jorge Tejada was examining the charred remains of a bus in the parking lot near his recycling business in Lima. It had been set on fire overnight in what residents said was retaliation from a gang shaking down local bus companies.
Mr. Tejada, 50, has lost count of how many attacks like this have struck his neighborhood in the past year. Explosives set off at bodegas. Restaurants riddled with bullets. His own recycling yard was set ablaze and damaged after he ignored a gang’s demand to pay it $530 per month.
It could have been worse. A pharmacist was shot dead behind the counter of his store and several shop owners have gone into hiding, he said.
“This used to be a tranquil area,” Mr. Tejada said, describing how the former shantytown developed into an official district of the capital through decades of hard work and community organizing. “Now we all live in fear here.”
A growing number of Peruvians feel the same way. The South American nation is grappling with an extraordinary crime wave, fueled by a surge in extortion schemes as gangs exert increasing control over urban areas.
Reports of extortion across the country have ballooned since 2017, from a few hundred per year to more than 2,000 per month this year, according to the national police. And the number of killings by hired hit men has also jumped significantly in recent years, statistics show.
Demands for protection fees reach victims through WhatsApp messages, handwritten notes or in-person visits. Retaliation for those who fail to pay is meted out through dynamite or arson attacks, or armed men on motorcycles who kill victims on the streets.
The crime epidemic has overwhelmed the authorities and is threatening to transform a relatively tranquil Latin American country into a source of regional instability. The central bank has warned that an epidemic of extortion is stifling economic activity and, experts say, is contributing to increased migration.
“Peru appears to be rapidly climbing the ranks of the more dangerous countries in Latin America,’’ said Eduardo Moncada, a political scientist at Columbia University who focuses on crime in Latin America. “And that’s a difficult position to be in because it’s very hard to climb back down.”
So far this year, two journalists were shot and killed by armed men in public. In January, dynamite was detonated at a regional prosecutor’s office, injuring two people.
And in March two gunmen shot up the tour bus of a popular cumbia group, killing its lead singer, Paul Flores.
Afterward, fellow musicians, including Christian Yaipén, the lead singer of another cumbia band, recounted their own run-ins with extortionists.
“It’s the whole country suffering this,’’ Mr. Yaipén told journalists. “It’s all of us in Peru who have to go out to work to make a living and don’t know whether we’ll return home alive.”
In one of the worst episodes of violence, the bodies of 13 gold miners were discovered in May at a site operated by Peru’s largest gold-mining firm, a massacre the authorities say was orchestrated by a gang leader.
Efforts by Peru’s president, Dina Boluarte, to address the violence by imposing states of emergencies appear to have done little to control the rampant crime.
Ms. Boluarte, who has been in power for three years, has suggested that rising crime levels are partly the result of the large numbers of Venezuelan migrants who have arrived in the country in recent years, though there is no evidence that they commit crime at higher rates than Peruvians.
Peru’s interior minister and the police declined requests for an interview.
Ms. Boluarte has vowed to deploy a tougher campaign against criminal groups. “Our message is clear,’’ she told journalists in April. “Under this government, crime has no place and that is our struggle every day.’’
Extortion appeals to gangs because it provides a steady flow of cash while also helping cement control over a territory, said Dr. Moncada, who wrote a book about extortion in Latin America. “It allows you to recruit locals into becoming sort of your eyes and ears,” he said. “You’re sort of known to a majority of the population through this extractive relationship, and that gives you a lot of authority.”
Extortion also requires frequent use of violence to instill fear and ensure compliance. Some neighborhoods in Lima have been so shaken by crime that schools have switched to online classes.
Those hit the hardest by extortion rackets are not the wealthy — who live in safe enclaves and can afford private security — but the working poor and small business owners who depend on a police force that is understaffed and has also been hobbled by corruption.
Dozens of police officers have been arrested in the past year and charged with working with gangs or trafficking weapons and ammunition, according to local news reports.
“The strategy of criminals today is to attack the most vulnerable areas. And why the most vulnerable areas? Because there’s impunity there,” said Jesus Maldonado, the mayor of Lima’s largest district, San Juan de Lurigancho. Home to more than 1.2 million people, the district has just 600 police officers, far less than wealthier neighborhoods, Mr. Maldonado said.
Virtually any public-facing operation that deals in cash can fall prey to extortionists. Hardware stores, night clubs, even community soup kitchens and dog shelters have reportedly been targeted.
A motorcycle taxi driver in Lima said he earns $11 to $19 a day, but sets aside $1.30 for extortionists. He said knows at least five fellow drivers who have been shot dead for resisting their demands.
Erika Solis, a crime researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, said the violence started really picking up at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when lockdowns emptied streets and led criminals to pivot from robbery to extortion using WhatsApp.
Venezuelan gang members who arrived as part of a migration wave from that troubled national have also added to the crime problem, experts said.
Nearly a decade of political turmoil, government infighting and high-level corruption cases have taken a toll on the government’s ability to deliver services, including effective policing. Peru has cycled through five presidents in the past five years.
Critics say Ms. Boluarte and lawmakers have contributed to the crime crisis by pushing through laws aimed at shielding them from prosecution. Ms. Boluarte is under investigation for possible charges of corruption and human rights violations. She has denied any wrongdoing.
One relatively new law makes it harder to keep people accused of crimes in pretrial detention and shortens prison sentences for first-time offenders.
“It’s out of control,” Marita Felipe, who lives in Lima, said of the crime situation. Her father, Luis Felipe, 62, was one of four people shot dead inside a mini bus in October. He had recently retired from the police force after 32 years and was heading home when a man climbed aboard and starting shooting.
Referring to her father’s tenure as an officer, Ms. Felipe said, “in all that time nothing happened to him and then we lose him like this.”
Carlos Saenz, a textile manufacturer in Lima, closed his shop in December 2023 after a gang demanding more than $5,000 started sent him photos making it clear he was being watched. Now he operates a workshop with no public signage. He also bought a gun.
“What happens if they come after me again?” he said. “Who’s going to protect me?”
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