In Peru, extortion is now part of doing business
Bus operators and builders pay weekly quotas, while market vendors face shakedown calls demanding phone payments.
Atlantic Council · Peru at a breaking point: How ten years of political chaos opened the door to organized crimeIn Peru, paying criminals has become a routine cost of doing business.
In Trujillo and Chiclayo, bus companies and builders hand over a weekly quota, a regular payment to criminals to be left alone and allowed to keep working.
In districts of Lima, even market vendors get threatening calls demanding instant transfers through phone payment apps such as Yape or Plin, which vendors can send from their stalls.
Many of those targeted work in Peru's huge off-the-books economy, which provides jobs for almost seven in ten Peruvians. As payments and killings piled up, those workers held strikes and street protests against a government they saw as absent or complicit.
It is not a few isolated cases. Reported extortions rose sixfold from 2019 to 2024, and about one Peruvian in three says they know a victim.
Questions people ask
What is the off-the-books economy?
It means work done outside formal payrolls and tax records, from driving an unregistered bus to selling food in a street market. That work often lacks contracts and police protection, which can leave workers more exposed when criminals demand money.
Why do criminals ask for payment through Yape or Plin?
Yape and Plin are phone apps widely used in Peru to send money instantly with a few taps. They are convenient for legitimate small sales, and for the same reason they let a vendor under threat send money without meeting anyone or visiting a bank.