The bodies of 13 gold miners were found in underground shafts at a site run by Peru's largest gold mining company, President Dina Boralto said Monday in an area where conflict over access to ore has been growing in recent years.
As gold prices rose, small mining in Peru expanded, and mining concessions in Lapoderosa, in the northern part of the country, became a hotbed of illegal gold mining and a fatal conflict site.
According to Boralte, the body was found Sunday. The man was working for artisans with a contract with Lapoderosa or for informal mining operations, the company said in a statement on Sunday.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show miners blindfolded and naked on mining shafts. I hear someone begging me, “please.” A representative from the National Police told the New York Times that officials had not confirmed the credibility of the video.
It was not immediately clear why the 13 men were killed. La Poderosa said in a statement that armed offenders attacked mining operations and lured workers on April 26th.
Bolalto said two suspected killings were arrested in Pataz for guns, magazines and ammunition.
Segundo Nicholas Cueva Rojas, the owner of the mining work of the craftsmen who hired the workers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment via phone and email.
Before the bodies were found, some of the workers' parents complained to local news media that the authorities were not doing enough to find their loved one.
“The victim's father, Abraham Dominguez, 29, told the local radio show Exitosa. “This is not punishable. This is not a murdered animal. These are humans.”
He told the New York Times that his son “wanted to flourish and be someone in life.” He added: “He had strong desires and willingness to move forward. Now he's gone.”
He also said that it was not police who found the body, nor was it a self-defense patrol known as “Ronderos” who operates in the highlands.
Peru is Latin America's second largest producer of gold after Mexico and the 10th largest global producer along with Indonesia, according to 2024 data from the US Geological Survey. Peru has long struggled to limit illegal gold mining, especially in the remote Amazon region where wildcat mines have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of rainforest and dumped mercury into rivers.
During the pandemic lockdown, criminals seized control of empty mining shafts operated by certified artisan miners in Lapoderosa, prompting a fatal battle over access to tunnels and gold produced inside.
Part of the problem is that Peru allows craftsman miners registered with the government to exempt police evictions, labor, environmental and tax laws, and allows illegal miners to provide legal compensation in prohibited areas or to operate without the permission of the concension owner.
In its statement, La Poderosa denounced Peruvian parliament for spiral violence, saying it had extended the deadline for informal miners to legalize their businesses completely, and accused the government of not removing unauthorized miners from the list.
“Pataz has become a lawless territory where violence rampifies, takes lives, sacrificed fear and conquering the will,” the statement said. “It is impossible to defeat a crime if police continue to enter and block the entrances of illegal mines where criminal gangs are evacuated and operate.”
In December 2023, nine people were killed in a mining ambush by criminals, and last October authorities discovered 16 bodies in a mass grave in one mine shaft.
On Saturday, when authorities searched the missing man, police rescued 50 workers from Calaveli, another Peruvian mining company, who was held hostage at the company's gold processing plant in another part of Pataz, according to the Peruvian State News Agency. Eight people were injured in a shootout between police and an armed man.
In response to the latest massacre, Boralte has suspended mining activities in the Pataz area for 30 days, urging the military to restore order. On Monday, she announced a curfew in the Pataz area between 6pm and 6am, saying authorities will set up a military base there.
Pataz mayor Aldo Carlos Marigno said the state's emergency situation has been “no use” for the past year, urging the government to improve intelligence reporting to stop the offenders behind the violence.
“We give everything to the country, we give all the money,” Marigno said on his local TV station on Sunday. “Pataz state is covered in blood.”
