Autopsy protocols on the four people killed alongside kidnapped Peruvian mining businessman Jenss Lara Tantaquilla in Trujillo show that all four died from gunshot wounds to the head, according to documents obtained by the newspaper La República from the special police team investigating the case.
The four victims were killed on Sunday, August 30, 2026, when armed men intercepted the vehicle carrying Lara and abducted him. The attack has been attributed to members of the criminal organization known as "Los Pulpos." Police sources said the autopsy protocols contain key information for profiling the killers, since the trajectory of the shots and the location of the wounds can show whether the attackers were professionals and what weapons they used.
Four victims, all shot in the head
The driver, 33-year-old Christopher García Álvarez, suffered the most gunshot wounds of the four, with seven recorded. Nadia Urtecho Rodríguez, 28, who was seated behind the driver, was hit four times. Luis Rojas Ramos De Rosas, 38, seated behind the front passenger, was recorded with two bullet wounds. Andrea Monzón Lingán, 20, in the front passenger seat, was hit once.
Investigators said the killers agreed that none of the vehicle's occupants, other than Lara himself, would be left alive.
Driver shot first to block the getaway
Footage of the attack shows the gunmen fired a first round of shots at the vehicle, pulled Lara out, and then kept firing. Police sources described all four victims as having been finished off, which they said explains the shots to the head.
Sources close to the investigation said García was the most likely first target, describing him as having the highest number of documented injuries, twelve numbered wounds, several of them necessarily fatal, with the shots fired from his left side. The most devastating wound produced an entry hole in the left parietal region that exposed brain matter, according to the autopsy protocol. Investigators said shooting the driver first stopped the vehicle from fleeing and made it easier to pull Lara out, which they said explains why he received the most shots.
Targeted shots to the head, neck and chest
Urtecho suffered four entry wounds, including injuries to the skull, brain and chest, according to the protocol.
Rojas Ramos was recorded with a single wound to the back of the neck that penetrated the skull and caused the fatal injury.
Monzón Lingán was hit once, in the back of the head, with a penetrating shot that investigators described as necessarily fatal after the projectile crossed the brain.
Sources involved in the case said the autopsy findings show the shootings were not random fire at a vehicle. They said the pattern shows shots directed at highly vulnerable areas, the head, neck and chest, capable of causing death immediately or very quickly, meaning the kidnapping involved the deliberate elimination of witnesses. They added that the different bullet trajectories help reconstruct the relative positions of victims and shooters, and that the wounds to the back of the head and neck suffered by Monzón and Rojas show their backs were exposed toward the source of the gunfire when those shots were fired.
Two types of weapons used
Ballistics experts from the Criminalistics Division in Trujillo recovered nine shell casings at the scene: eight 9x19mm Luger casings of the "Águila" brand found inside the vehicle, and a single 5.7x28mm casing also found inside the truck. Investigators said this indicates two different weapons were used.
The 9x19mm Parabellum round is common pistol ammunition. The 5.7x28mm round is far less common, used exclusively in the FN P90 submachine gun and the FN Five-seveN pistol, both made by the Belgian firm Fabrique Nationale. In Peru, that ammunition is issued to the special forces of the armed forces rather than the National Police, and investigators said it probably came from the black market. It is also capable of piercing bulletproof vests.
A jacket fragment compatible with a 9mm round was found on Monzón's body, sources said, beginning to link specific wounds to the weapons used. Two roughly 9mm projectiles recovered from the scene were matched to each other and found to have been fired from the same firearm. Investigators said it has not yet been determined which victim was struck by the 5.7x28mm round, and that no adapter or conversion device was found attached to a 9mm pistol. The evidence, they said, is consistent with the use of at least two firearms of different calibers.
Gunshot residue tests
Five suspects were given atomic absorption tests, which came back positive for lead, antimony and barium in the cases of Frank Quezada Cruz, Ángel Bocanegra Linares, César Iván García Rivera and Julio Zavaleta Quezada. Investigators cautioned that a positive result does not necessarily mean all four fired weapons during the attack, noting that only two firearms have been linked to the shooting through the ballistic evidence.
Sources on the police investigation said the positive results do not necessarily mean all four suspects fired, since the test must be weighed alongside other evidence, but that it strengthens the hypothesis that more than one armed person took part.
Investigators said the autopsy protocols, ballistic reports and residue tests together point to killers who were not improvising, but who had training and skill with firearms and knew where to shoot to neutralize their victims quickly. According to the police data reviewed, all four occupants were shot from long range, indicating the use of precision weapons, and investigators have not ruled out that some of the attackers received military training, based on their handling of the weapons, the precision of the fatal shots and the way they carried out the attack.
