16-05-2025
Inside Peru's ruthless gold rush as drug gangs turn to illegal mining
In the depths where some find fortunes, Peruvian security contractors had been blindfolded and stripped naked, their hands bound. One uttered a barely audible cry for help. There would be none.
The 13 men who had been held hostage at the Poderosa gold mine in Pataz, a province in northern Peru, were filmed as they were shot dead one by one. Their executioners were careful to make sure they could still be identified when the footage was sent to their families. 'Aim for the neck,' one said earlier this month. 'Not the head.'
Though the precise motive for the attack remains unclear — the security contractors were guarding the mine from criminal gangs — the warning was stark: despite a 15-month state of emergency, and
