Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic José León long scraped by on $18 a day from driving a bus in suburban Lima. But over the past three years he has been driven further into poverty by a new expense: payments of between $316 and $527 a month to racketeers who send death threats via WhatsApp.“We once lived in peace but now we’re risking our lives just by going to work,” said León, 63, for whom the shakedowns sometimes absorb almost his entire income. “If you don’t pay, they’ll kill you.”An expanding network of extortion rackets has targeted sectors from transport companies to barbers, private schools and corner shops in Peru, triggering a wave of protests and strikes. Criminal groups engaged in contract killings and the drug trade have moved into extortion, exploiting a political power vacuum in which Peru has cycled through six presidents in as many years.Analysts have also blamed ripple effects from the demobilisation of Colombia’s Farc guerrilla group and the spread of Venezuelan gangs for the expansion of organised crime into a business that dwarfs the resources of Peruvian ministries trying to tackle it.“Extortion provides organised crime syndicates with something they most need: cash flow,” said Ricardo Valdes, a former deputy interior minister who now runs Capital Humano y Social Alternativo, a think-tank in Lima.“And the big problem we now have in Peru is that the sheer amount of money moving around in illegal economies dwarfs the combined annual budget for the interior ministry, the defence ministry, the national police, the attorney general’s office, and the judiciary.”Authorities received 17,630 reports of extortion in the first 10 months of 2024, roughly in line with the previous year and well above the 4,500 cases documented in 2021, although analysts warn that the vast majority go unreported because of fears of retaliation. Meanwhile, 2024 was the most murderous year on record, with 2,126 homicides reported from January to December 26, surpassing 1,431 in all of 2023 and more than triple the 671 recorded in 2017, according to government data. In 2023, 2,600 corner shops in Lima were forced to close by extortion, according to the industry’s main association; schools have also been shuttered. Residents of the capital complain of a low police presence on the streets even as billboards urge victims to report extortion cases.While transport is not the only sector affected, it has been particularly badly hit. León has joined hundreds of fellow bus drivers to protest in the historic centre of Lima against racketeers and the government, which he says is doing little to tackle the problem. Truckers have blocked roads and held strikes in recent months around the country, including during the Apec summit attended by China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in Lima in November.“The government is doing nothing to bring us security,” said Fernando Núñez, another bus driver, as he marched in central Lima. “We’re all facing threats and we hear nothing from the government.”A partner in a bus company who heads a transport association, but asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, estimated that in Lima and the neighbouring Callao district, extortion payments cost the sector at least $800,000 per month. Of 350 transport companies operating in the area, at least 150 pay monthly extortion fees of about $5,250, with the vast majority of payments made directly by drivers, he said.“By going after the drivers, they are generating widespread chaos and anxiety in the whole sector,” the businessman said. “Because if you have no drivers, what is the point in a business having the fleet of buses, or a concession to run the route?”He added that the informal structure of the capital’s transport network — with the majority under a concession system operated by private companies — is vulnerable to extortion, as almost all fares are paid in cash. “The criminals are well aware that bus drivers are carrying cash,” he said.Criminals also find information about businesses and individuals to use in extortion rackets by trawling social media, or by purchasing hacked information on the black market, said Valdes.According to data compiled by CHSA, illegal economies in Peru were worth $9.8bn in 2023, with illegal gold mining the largest at $4bn, while extortion brought in $758mn. The government’s budget for the interior ministry, which oversees the police, in 2024 was $3bn and the defence ministry’s $2.3bn.In September, as business lobby groups warned that Peru was “losing the battle” against organised crime, authorities declared a 60-day state of emergency in 14 districts around the capital, allowing the military to be deployed and suspending some rights to assembly. The measure, which the government claims reduced crime rates by 22 per cent, was extended in late November.Analysts say one factor in the organised crime boom is the 2016 demobilisation of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a guerrilla group that was heavily involved in the production and trafficking of cocaine across the Peruvian border. Their de facto monopoly over the cocaine trade in Southern Colombia was surrendered to rival organisations, with effects also felt inside Colombia, where extortions are rising, and Ecuador, which is experiencing a surge in violent crime linked with drug trafficking.At the same time, members of Venezuelan crime syndicates, including the Tren de Aragua, have joined their country’s mass migration wave, and have carried out high-profile crimes across Latin America.Rising crime rates are piling pressure on unpopular President Dina Boluarte and her equally despised coalition in congress — both have approval ratings of about 3 per cent — as her administration tries to survive a series of scandals ahead of elections in 2026. Turnover in Peru’s ministries has been high since July 2021, when the term of leftist president Pedro Castillo began. Castillo was jailed in December 2022 for attempting to close congress and rule by decree, leaving Boluarte, his vice-president, to finish his term. Eduardo Pérez Rocha, former director of Peru’s national police, said the turmoil was hurting the effort to battle organised crime.“There’s been 13 interior ministers since Castillo, so logically that lack of continuity brings problems,” said Pérez Rocha. “There is no governmental policy to tackle crime at a national level.”Interior minister Juan José Santiváñez declined to be interviewed.The chaos in the executive branch has boosted the power of congress, where dozens of lawmakers have been under criminal investigation, according to local media. The body passed a law in July softening the definition of organised crime groups and barring investigators from raiding suspected safe houses for evidence without the suspect and their lawyers present. That followed an earlier reform limiting prosecutors’ scope to cut plea bargains.“Congress is passing laws that are in favour of corruption, and that’s why in place of security we have graft,” said León, as he protested outside the legislative palace. “And this is something that Boluarte as president is allowing, so obviously we want them all to go.”
