About 300 people were arrested this Friday in Lima in a major operation carried out by the National Police of Peru (PNP) and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. against an alleged criminal organization engaged in extortion throughout South America, official sources report.

“This involves a fairly large number of people who will be investigated. An average of 300 people have been detained so far,” PNP Commander General Jorge Angulo told reporters.

The police chief said the operation allowed intervention in “an unprecedented information management center‘ and that it is ‘a criminal organization that has an impact at a South American level.’

“We are talking about a criminal organization that recruits people here to work in this ‘call center’, in a communications center. where Peruvian and foreign citizens, especially from neighboring countries, can be extorted through phone calls and messages”, he indicated.

He added that the illegal activity “could involve approximately 7,000 people who are being extorted in various ways, through (social) networks, mobile phones or other communication mechanisms.”

The Public Prosecutor’s Office, in turn, indicated that the operation was carried out in three properties in the districts of Lince, San Isidro and Cercado de Lima, and allowed the arrest of 13 alleged leaders of the criminal gang, including the top leader.

In addition, chips from mobile phones, mobile equipment, computer hard drives, laptops and other electronic equipment were seized.

The Third Office of the First Provincial Public Prosecutor’s Office for Criminal Affairs claims that this organization has been extorting citizens through phone calls and threatening messages after lending them money through a mobile application, he added.

Local media showed the large police deployment carried out from noon this Friday to enter several buildings in the Peruvian capital.where dozens of people intervened and were taken in buses to the police stations, where they still remain.

Agents from the Kidnapping Investigation Division and the High Technology Investigation Division, as well as members of the PNP Special Forces, participated in the operation.

Dozens of parents of detained youth arrived at the site where the communication centers were functioning and indicated that their children were not participating in illegal activities and were only calling to collect loans.

“My 29 year old daughter underwent surgery. She was just collecting. They are employees. “Those who need to be arrested are the owners of those call centers,” one of the mothers told the newspaper. The Republic.

Another father said the company seemed legal and even conducted a selection process that involved submitting the criminal records of the employees, who believed they were innocent and only made collection calls like those of other companies in the financial system. (JO)