'I'll Rip Your Head Off': Gang's Grip Over Gold Mines Wows Terror in Peru's La Pampa

Peru's Guardianes de la Trocha gang has taken over La Pampa, a gold-rich area running alongside the Tambopata National Reserve, one of the most biodiverse regions on the continent. Forbidden Stories and its partner Mongabay Latam reveal how this criminal organisation spreads terror, silencing any opposition with the help of rising corruption in the country.

The once-lush forest is now little more than a wasteland. For 15 years, illegal miners have been setting up camp in La Pampa, in southeastern Peru, in the department of Madre de Dios.

Previously covered in tropical jungle, the area surrounding the Interoceanic Highway has become a living hell. Every day, men tear up the ground and pollute the waterways.

“Birds don’t like the mine. They’ve all left,” said Diego Torres,* a farmer with a front-row seat to the gold fever that has seized his region. For the past two years, orange mud has covered his plot, along with fuel canisters and scraps of wood and metal. Torres’ dogs wallow in patches of oil-stained land. Here and there, miners have left huge metal pipes abandoned among dying palm trees.

Keep quiet or face death threats: independent journalist Manuel Calloquispe deals with the same dilemma. For more than a decade, he has been one of the only local reporters documenting and denouncing the activities of illegal gold miners in the region. He has paid a steep price. Calloquispe has been beaten and had his equipment stolen, and he has lost count of the threats and intimidation he has received – even from right outside his home.

In 2022, Calloquispe’s family had to leave Puerto Maldonado, the capital of Madre de Dios. With danger growing, in January 2025, the journalist decided to join Forbidden Stories’ SafeBox Network to protect sensitive documents: the product of years of investigations.

In early 2025, Calloquispe was investigating Edison Fernandez Perez, alias Chili, one of the two leaders of Guardianes de la Trocha. In an investigation published on the Inforegion website, he revealed the seizure of numerous weapons and shed light on the gang’s internal struggles.

On August 28, 2025, a few days before releasing his article, Calloquispe received a chilling phone call. On the other end, he recognised Alver Carranza Fernandez, Chili’s lieutenant. The warning was unambiguous: “I’m going to rip your head off … Who will speak when you’re gone? You’ve already been identified. We’re going to kill your son, your brother. We know where you are, we know where your family is.”

Shaken by the call, Calloquispe says he had to stop publishing and left the city to go into hiding for the fourth time since 2011. With his consent, in October 2025, Forbidden Stories and publication partner Mongabay Latam decided to travel to Madre de Dios to continue his work.

Read more...