Parents drop off their children at the private San Vicente School in Lima, Peru, which was targeted for extortion, in April. Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images
LIMA, Peru — At a Roman Catholic elementary school on the ramshackle outskirts of Lima, students are rambunctious and seemingly carefree. By contrast, school administrators are stressing out.
One tells NPR that gangsters are demanding that the school pay them between 50,000 and 100,000 Peruvians sols — between $14,000 and $28,000.
“They send us messages saying they know where we live,” says the administrator — who, for fear of retaliation from the gangs, does not want to reveal his identity or the name of the school. “They send us photos of grenades and pistols.”
These are not empty threats. A few weeks ago, he says, police arrested a 16-year-old in the pay of gangs as he planted a bomb at the entrance to the school. The teenager had not been a student or had other connections with the school.
Schools in Peru are easy targets for extortion. Due to the poor quality of public education, thousands of private schools have sprung up. Many are located in impoverished barrios dominated by criminals — who are now demanding a cut of their tuition fees.
Miriam Ramírez, president of one of Lima’s largest parent-teacher associations, says at least 1,000 schools in the Peruvian capital are being extorted and that most are caving into the demands of the gangs. To reduce the threat to students, some schools have switched to online classes. But she says at least five have closed down.
Miriam Ramírez is president of one of Lima’s largest parent-teacher associations and she says at least 1,000 schools in the Peruvian capital are being extorted and that most are caving into the demands of the gangs. John Otis for NPR hide caption
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John Otis for NPR
If this keeps up, Ramírez says, “The country is going to end up in total ignorance.”
Extortion is part of a broader crime wave in Peru that gained traction during the COVID pandemic. Peru also saw a huge influx of Venezuelan migrants, including members of the Tren de Aragua criminal group that specializes in extortion — though authorities concede it is hard to definitively connect Tren de Aragua members with these school extortions.
Francisco Rivadeneyra, a former Peruvian police commander, tells NPR that corrupt cops are part of the problem. In exchange for bribes, he says, officers tip off gangs about pending police raids. NPR reached out to the Peruvian police for comment but there was no response.
Political instability has made things worse. Due to corruption scandals, Peru has had six presidents in the past nine years. In March, current President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency in Lima and ordered the army into the streets to help fight crime.
But analysts say it’s made little difference. Extortionists now operate in the poorest patches of Lima, areas with little policing, targeting hole-in-the-wall bodegas, streetside empanada stands and even soup kitchens. Many of the gang members themselves are from poor or working class backgrounds, authorities say, so they are moving in an environment that they already know.
“We barely have enough money to buy food supplies,” says Genoveba Huatarongo, who helps prepare 100 meals per day at a soup kitchen in the squatter community of Villa María.
Even so, she says, thugs stabbed one of her workers and then left a note demanding weekly “protection” payments. Huatarongo reported the threats to the police. To avoid similar attacks, nearby soup kitchens now pay the gangsters $14 per week, she says.
But there is some pushback.
Carla Pacheco, who runs a tiny grocery in a working-class Lima neighborhood, is refusing to make the $280 weekly payments that local gangsters are demanding, pointing out that it takes her a full month to earn that amount.
Carla Pacheco runs a tiny grocery in Lima and she is refusing to make the $280 weekly payments that local gangsters are demanding. John Otis for NPR hide caption
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John Otis for NPR
She’s paid a heavy price. One morning she found her three cats decapitated, their heads hung in front of her store.
Though horrified, she’s holding out. To protect her kids, she changed her children’s schools to make it harder for gangsters to target them.
She rarely goes out and now dispenses groceries through her barred front door rather than allowing shoppers inside.
“I can’t support corruption because I am the daughter of policeman,” Pacheco explains. “If I pay the gangs, that would bring me down to their level.”
After a bomb was found at its front gate in March, the San Vicente School in north Lima hired private security guards and switched to online learning for several weeks. When normal classes resumed, San Vicente officials told students to wear street clothes rather than school uniforms to avoid being recognized by gang members.
“They could shoot the students in revenge,” explains Violeta Upangi, waiting outside the school to pick up her 13-year-old daughter.
Due to the threats, about 40 of San Vicente’s 1,000 students have left the school, says social studies teacher Julio León.
Rather than resist, many schools have buckled to extortion demands.
The administrator at the Catholic elementary school says his colleagues reported extortion threats to the police. But instead of going after the gangs, he says, the police recommended that the school pay them off for their own safety. As a result, the school ended up forking over the equivalent of $14,000. The school is now factoring extortion payments into its annual budgets, the administrator says.
“It was either that,” the administrator explains, “or close down the school.”
