A 31-year-old gold trader spent almost 36 hours in a bunker in Trujillo, northern Peru, built in the basement of a house in a residential neighborhood, with no natural light or ventilation and oxygen tanks keeping the captive alive, according to El País.

Jenss Lara's statement to the Attorney General's Office, obtained by the newspaper, describes men posing as police officers who handcuffed him and took him to a cell with a steel door and a digital lock. Gangs such as Los Pulpos, which emerged in the city, have turned extorting “protection money” from merchants into a criminal enterprise, and the kidnappings target million-dollar ransoms. Trujillo has been under a state of emergency since 2024, and the fight against crime was a central theme of the campaign that helped Keiko Fujimori win the presidency in June.