Violent clashes broke out between local gangs, protesters and the police during the demonstration. A group of armed gang members opened fire, injuring three people, including Sandoval. The 29-year-old journalist died 12 days later.
Sandoval’s death has highlighted an astronomical increase in deadly violence recorded in the country. Similar incidents have long plagued countries such as Colombia and Brazil, but this is an entirely new phenomenon in Chile. The data is in Chilean public entities, although all are current alarming figures. According to Chile’s Crime Prevention Department, between 2016 and 2021, there was a 40% increase in homicides. Meanwhile, the National Prosecutor’s Office found that there has been a 66% increase in murders from 2016-2020.
However, the Insight Crime Report also states that “while Chile has long been protecting against criminal activity and gangs influencing other countries, this no longer appears to be the case.”
Chile’s Crime Prevention Department reported that murders increased by about 30% between 2019 and 2020, with police attributing the pandemic, the economic downturn, and the resulting increase in illegal trade. While homicides declined by 21.8% between 2020 and 2021, the cumulative figures since 2017 show an overall increase in the homicide rate.
“The situation in Chile is worrying,” Juan Pablo Luna, a political scientist at the Institute of Political Science at the Catholic University of Chile, told CNN, adding that it is not alone as it descends into violence.
“Countries where the state is relatively strong and with solid democracy should have been free from such a scenario, but now we see that it was an illusion,” Luna said.
He pointed to Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Ecuador, among others in the region, who also face rising crime.
Ecuador’s figures are particularly striking, with an 84.4% increase in murders over the past year, according to the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Census. In Uruguay, the interior ministry recently said there had been an increase of more than 33% within a year. In Peru, the government declared a state of emergency in the region of Lima and Callao earlier this year to fight crime, mostly targeting contract killings. And in Paraguay, according to Insight Crime, there has also been a significant increase in hitman killings over the past year.
Experts attribute the rise in violence across the region to the growing reach of global crime networks.
Alejandra Mohr, a sociologist at the Center for Public Safety Studies of the Public Affairs Institute at the Universidad de Chile, told CNN that “we are seeing more infiltration of international organized crime in these countries.”
“Because of globalization, we see that the types of crimes have changed. In extremely violent countries like Colombia or Venezuela, you may not notice it, but in Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and probably Argentina, this criminal occupation level The expertise is having a big impact because it is new,” said Mohr.
However, this expansion in Chile did not happen overnight.
Experts say new criminal strategies have evolved progressively over the past decade, but officials fail to predict how seriously this will affect society.
In 2011, for example, the Santiago Metropolitan Region’s Coroner Services warned in a report that gun-related homicides were trending upward. “The increase in firearm deaths among young people in our country is a phenomenon we should pay attention to,” the report said.
But it didn’t gain much traction with law enforcement or city officials, Mohr said. As violence escalated, public policies implemented by subsequent governments failed to meet the basic needs of many low-income neighborhoods, which, in turn, provided fertile ground for criminal groups to settle – and drug. For expansion of business.
“We have people living in isolated areas, far from their workplaces, no good public transport, and no schools or health services available. And when the state is absent, organized crime begins to fill that void. gives,” she said.
In a 2021 article in the Urban Violence Research Network, researchers said the inequality felt by the poor and working class in Latin America with “few other options for survival” made them “easily recruited into the drug trade.” ” ,
“The cocaine trade integrates marginalized areas that have been left out by the state into global markets and serves as a driver of growth,” the organization said.
Ironically, prosperity is also believed to be the cause of increasing violence. According to Luna, more money means more drugs, and by 2014 the commodity boom in favor of South America helped illegal businesses flourish. High drug consumption also followed an increase in purchasing power, attracting new actors to the illegal economy, and strengthening southern drug trafficking routes.
All these factors led to new territorial disputes between gangs and more violence in Chile, as well as in Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador.
‘Surrounded by drug dealers’
Ng, who CNN isn’t fully identifying for security concerns, lives in the impoverished El Bosque neighborhood of Santiago and felt that change firsthand. The 28-year-old has lived with her mother in the same house since she was born – but now she barely recognizes her block.
“When I was a kid, my main concern was that when I came back home, my mother would find me playing in the street instead of doing my homework. Now I hardly go out,” she said. “We live surrounded by drug dealers.”
Most of the time, she says she is scared.
“Every day we hear fireworks, because dealers use them as a sign that a drug load has arrived, because there’s a narco-funeral, or just to cover up the noise of shootings. We rarely The police see – we cannot live in peace,” she said.
Ng said such insecurities have gotten worse since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Experts point out that the economic crisis, increase in migrant smuggling along the Bolivia-Chile border and police corruption have added to the problem, giving a new dimension to organized crime.
Last September, the Chilean Observatory on Drugs warned of the rise of two Mexican cartels (Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation) and one Colombian cartel (Cartel del Golfo) in Chile. According to Ernesto López Portillo, coordinator of the public safety program at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, the Mexican cartel has also increased its operations in Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.
Mohr explained that international criminal groups are adopting each new country by forming new alliances with local gangs to strengthen their grip.
“We are no longer talking about drug trafficking or micro-trafficking,” Chong told CNN. “These are organizations that act like holdings with a variety of illegal activities: murder for hire, illegal firearms trafficking, extortion, human trafficking, sexual exploitation and more.”
In this context, many South American countries do not have the means to properly address the issue, Chong said, as the tactics of criminal groups are evolving rapidly, as many countries have been able to investigate. For example, Chile lacks special police forces, innovative police technologies, and adequate witness protection programs. Chong said all of this, combined with corruption, represented major obstacles to prosecuting and sanctioning criminal groups.
“We need to develop new prosecution strategies that go beyond specific criminal incidents, given that internationally, we see criminal organizations entering public services,” she said.
A day after Chilean journalist Sandoval was shot, a man with a previous criminal record for drug dealing was arrested and charged with murder, Chilean media reported. The weapon he reportedly used has yet to be found, although officials have established that the bullet was a caliber 40. The representative of the president of the metropolitan area of Santiago said the shooting was linked to organized crime and loose gun control, two issues the government is committed to tackling.
“States are completely incapable of eliminating international organized crime,” said López Portillo.
“It is affecting the health of democracy and undermining the already weak rule of law. And countries that had less violence are not exempt from this reality because criminal markets have no boundaries and never will be. Will happen.”