[00:00:01] Steven Dudley: Hello, Steven Dudley here, co-director of InSight Crime. Before we begin, a suggestion and a warning. The suggestion: wear headphones. The warning: this episode contains descriptions of physical and sexual violence. And some parts may be difficult to listen to, so be mindful as you do. This story is also available in Spanish. Check your feed if you want to listen to that version. Now, let’s get to the story.

[00:00:35] Lara Loaiza: I’m Lara Loaiza. Right now, in Peru, sex workers are being hunted. Not figuratively, actually hunted. I went there to understand why. And what I found starts with a mother, a daughter, and three men in a car.

[00:00:56] Leida: Bajan y la cogen a mi hija a meterla al carro.

[00:01:02] Lara Loaiza: That’s Leida Portal, she’s a sex worker in Lima. And she’s describing the day three men tried to take her daughter. Her daughter, Rosa, was sixteen. She was walking to the library with a friend on a busy street in Lima. Three men pulled up in a car. They got out, grabbed Rosa, and tried to force her inside. Her friend started screaming.

[00:01:21] Leida: Se la están llevando, se la están llevando los vecinos. Se la están llevando a Rosa, la están robando a Rosa.

[00:01:27] Lara Loaiza: The neighbors came out, they blocked the car, and the men let her go and ran. At first, everyone assumed it was a robbery. But Leida knew better. The car belonged to a police officer. And suddenly the pieces fit. Days earlier, Leida had filed a complaint against three cops who beat her while she was working. By the time those men came for her daughter, the death threats had already started.

[00:01:52] Leida: Esos años tenía que caminar con chaleco antibalas.

[00:01:54] Lara Loaiza: Eventually, she had to wear a bulletproof vest to work. Her story isn’t unusual. For sex workers in Lima, the police aren’t protection. They’re the threat. And even then — the worst hadn’t started yet. In 2020 a new criminal group arrived in Lima. And the message they brought was simple. Pay or we kill you. That’s when the hunt truly began. Welcome to InSight Crime’s Podcast, where we take you behind the headlines and to the frontlines of organized crime across the Americas. Today, Leida’s story. And the fight she took on for sex workers. First, against the Peruvian police, and later, against the criminal machine called the Tren de Aragua.

Leida Portal is 59. She is short with dark eyes and hair dyed electric blue. My colleague María Fernanda Ramírez and I went to see her in Lima, in February of 2024.

[00:03:08] María Fernanda Ramírez: Bueno, listo. Bueno.¿Cómo estás? Leida, cuéntanos. ¿Quién es Leida Portal?

[00:03:15] Leida: ¿Claro pero tú me vas a ir preguntando, verdad? Si, ya si, porque si no, no me voy por las ramas a veces.

[00:03:22] Lara Loaiza: As she spoke, Leida was self-effacing, warning us that her stories wonder. And they do. But the important parts came through. She grew up poor. By nineteen, she was selling ceviche on the street and raising five kids. Then one of them got sick. He needed surgery. That was money she didn’t have. So, Leida did something she didn’t tell anyone — not her parents, not her husband, not her children. She started doing sex work. To save her son. In Peru, sex work is not a crime, but it’s not formally regulated either, so it exists in a kind of legal limbo.

[00:03:57] Leida: Estamos vistas de una mala manera.

[00:04:00] Lara Loaiza: And it carries a stigma. A lot of it. It’s also dangerous. For years, the business was run by pimps, who were popularly known as mamis and papis or the mommas y papas. Then the police muscled in. They started charging the sex workers a fee. They called the quota el cupo.

[00:04:16] Leida: ¿El cupo es de pagarle, de acuerdo? Lo que ellos lo ven.

[00:04:21] Lara Loaiza: And the cops sold it with a lie. They told the sex workers that what they did was illegal — that every time they stood on a corner, they were breaking the law. And the cupo was the price they paid to stay out of jail. The amount was whatever the police decided it was. Two hundred soles a week — roughly $50 — three hundred. Whatever they wanted. And if a sex worker refused, they ran them off the corner.

[00:04:41] Leida: De lo contrario, te siembran droga, te mandan hasta la cárcel. Te ponen como proxeneta.

[00:04:48] Lara Loaiza: Or worse. The police would plan drugs on them. Or charge them as pimps — which, unlike sex work, actually was illegal. The sex workers were stuck. So, they paid. Leida paid. For years. 

[00:05:01] Leida: Yo no podía darme un lujo de celebrar un cumpleaños.

[00:05:05] Lara Loaiza: Half of what she made went to her family. The rest went to the cops. She couldn’t take a vacation. She couldn’t throw a birthday party. Her life wasn’t really hers.

[00:05:14] Lara Loaiza: Then, in 2021, Leida went to a workshop. She was in her forties. The workshop was about the rights of sex workers — and the woman running it told her something Leida had never heard before. Sex work isn’t a crime. The crime was what the police were doing.

[00:05:31] Leida: Y yo me puse a pensar y dije bueno, entonces, si no está penado, yo voy a reclamar, ya no voy a pagar más.

[00:05:36] Lara Loaiza: She decided right there, she wasn’t paying another sol. A week later, she got her chance to try out her new strategy.

[00:05:42] Leida: Me fue mal, muy mal.

[00:05:44] Lara Loaiza: Things went bad. Really bad. What follows will be difficult to hear, so bear with me while I walk you through it slowly.

[00:05:58] Lara Loaiza: Leida was in a room with a client, when three police men knocked on the door.

[00:06:03] Leida: El cliente se levante y se viste diciendo ya me voy preocupado de que ya la policía está en la puerta.

[00:06:08] Lara Loaiza: The client got up and scrambled to get dressed and leave. But the police didn’t let him out, then turned to Leida and demanded the cupo. Leida said no. They started shouting at her, telling her sex work was a crime. That she was going to pay or they would out her. They pulled out their phones and started filming. She was half dressed, and the client was still in the room. But Laura kept saying no to the cupo. 

[00:06:30] Leida: Me comenzaron a escupir la cara.

[00:06:33] Lara Loaiza: They spit in her face. They pushed her against the wall. And then one of them, the one who seemed to be in charge — hit her hard. She couldn’t breath and buckled to the floor.

[00:06:43] Leida: Cuando yo caigo al piso, yo veo como si fuera imágenes de televisión, en mis ojos.

[00:06:52] Lara Loaiza: There, she said she saw her family — like she was watching them on television. And her kids and parents. They were all running.

[00:06:57] Leida: Mi mente decía ya estoy muerta. Ya estoy muerta. Ya fui.

[00:07:03] Lara Loaiza: And she thought: I’m dead. I’m already dead. But she wasn’t. Slowly, her breathing came back. And as it did, she could hear one policeman telling the other two that they’d gone too far.

[00:07:15] Leida: Se te fue la mano concha tu madre decía así.

[00:07:19] Lara Loaiza: You hit her too hard, he said. They kept arguing, but the other two won out, and started hitting her again. Then, the boss got in her face, and began yelling at her, spit flying as he told her she was a whore. That she had no rights. That he was the law. That she would pay or he was sending her to jail. Eventually they dragged her out of the room, put her in a squad car, and took her to the station.

[00:07:44] Leida: Y me sacaron arrastrando. Arrastrándo me sacaron.

[00:07:48] Lara Loaiza: There, they turned over to a female officer who told Leida to undress. To bend over. And to brace yourself against the floor.

[00:07:55] Leida: Entonces ella agarra un guante y se comienza a poner.

[00:08:00] Lara Loaiza: While she put on a dry glove and pushed her hand inside Leida. Searching, supposedly, for drugs.

[00:08:05] Leida: Y me rebuscaba dentro de mi vagina. Me buscaba todo. O sea, la movía su mano, como quien decir, rebuscaba la metida. Sacaba su mano.

[00:08:17] Lara Loaiza: She didn’t find anything. Leida got dressed and went to a corner of the room. Alone. She started crying.

[00:08:23] Leida: Y me puse a llorar.

[00:08:24] Lara Loaiza: They let her go at midnight. She walked home alone. Replaying it. And somewhere along the way, she realized something.

[00:08:32] Leida: Y yo decía alma de mi madre. Estoy viva.

[00:08:45] Lara Loaiza: She was alive. When she got home, her kids were waiting. They could see something had happened. She sat them down. But before she could explain anything, she had to confess.

[00:08:54] Leida: Dinos qué pasó? ¿Qué pasó? Y yo les dije, les voy a confesar algo.

[00:09:01] Lara Loaiza: She told them the truth. The word she used was puta. I’m a puta. A whore.

[00:09:05] Leida: Y le digo, la mamá es puta. La mamá de ustedes es puta. Puta. Es su mamá de ustedes. Es puta.

[00:09:12] Lara Loaiza: She told them everything. The beating. The motel. The station. The glove. And she told them she wanted to report it.

[00:09:18] Leida: Quiero denunciar. Para nosotros, no eres una puta. Y si tú quieres denunciar, hazlo. Te vamos a apoyar.

[00:09:30] Lara Loaiza: Her kids said yes. They told her they would stand with her. Whatever came next.

[00:09:45] Lara Loaiza: But none of them knew how to report what had happened. Where you go. Who you talk to. Especially when the people would normally go to — the police — were the ones who did it. And then Leida remembered something. The workshop. A week earlier. The woman who told her sex work wasn’t a crime. Her name was Ángela.

[00:10:03] Ángela: Mi nombre es Ángela Villón. Ángela Leonor, me encanta ese nombre de Leonor. Es del nombre de mi madre.

[00:10:11] Lara Loaiza: Ángela Villón, or Ángela Leonor Villón, I should say. The Leonor was her mother’s name, and she wanted you to know it. She’s older than Leida. And she’s the most well-known activist for sex workers in Peru. She didn’t come to it by accident.

[00:10:25] Ángela: Yo inicié en la prostitución cuando tenía 17 años.

[00:10:32] Lara Loaiza: She was seventeen when she got pregnant. Her father — strict, conservative — threw her out, so there she was. A baby. No money. No work. She ended up at a brothel in Lima. She learned fast how it worked. The cops would pull up in trucks. Round up the sex workers. Take them away. They had a word for it: batida. A raid. I asked Ángela what the batidas were for.

[00:10:56] Leida: 100% para sacarnos dinero y para violarnos. Nos llevaban a la comisaría y nos obligaban a tener sexo a cambio de la libertad.

[00:11:08] Lara Loaiza: To take out money, she said. And to rape us. They take you to the station and force you to have sex in exchange for your freedom. That’s what the batidas were for.

[00:11:14] Ángela: Para eso, las batidas.

[00:11:16] Lara Loaiza: After years of this, Ángela had enough. During one of the batidas, a young officer asked for money. She said no. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the street. Through broken glass. Through rusty nails.

[00:11:30] Ángela: Pum! Otra vez al suelo! Puta mierda!

[00:11:36] Lara Loaiza: And people watched. One of them muttered something as he passed.

[00:11:39] Ángela: Ah, yeah.

[00:11:40] Lara Loaiza: — ah, yeah. Like he had seen this a hundred times before. Maybe he had. Something in Ángela broke that day.

[00:11:48] Ángela: Tenía ganas de suicidarme.

[00:11:50] Lara Loaiza: She wanted to kill herself. Ángela believes in God, and for a long time she wondered whether God still believed in her. When her first daughter was born, she didn’t name her Ángela.

[00:12:02] Ángela: Porque yo no quiero que mi hija sea puta como yo.

[00:12:05] Lara Loaiza: She didn’t want her daughter to end up like her. Eventually, the guilt loosened and something else took its place. Anger.

[00:12:13] Ángela: Y tenía esa sed de justicia,no venganza, sino justicia

[00:12:18] Lara Loaiza: She started reading. About the law. About the rights of sex workers. And what she thought all her life — that sex work was a crime — turned out to be a lie, sold to her by the same people who had been hurting sex workers like her for years. In 2002, Ángela founded the first sex workers’ rights organization in Peru. When her second daughter was born, Ángela named her Ángela. After herself. A fighter. A survivor. Ángela started telling other sex workers what she’d taken years to figure out. The cops were lying. They were not criminals. She held workshops all over Lima. Leida was at one of them. And that’s why, when the cops left her broken, Leida knew who to call.

[00:13:08] Leida: Entonces esta persona es la señora Angela Villón. Ella me dice que ha decidido hacer. Y yo le dije, pues que yo quiero denunciar.

[00:13:19] Lara Loaiza: Ángela helped her file the report. And almost immediately the threats started. The cops told her to take it back. She didn’t. And then somebody fired a gun at her house, the bullet holes are still there. And then, three men pulled up in a car and tried to take her daughter as she walked to the library. 

When the story hit the news, Leida’s youngest daughters started coming home from school crying.

[00:13:43] Leida: No, mamá. En el colegio, mis amigas me han dicho que tu mamá es puta. Salió por la televisión. La profesora las ha retirado a las niñas de mi costado. Las ha puesto a un costado. Yo estoy sola.

[00:13:56] Lara Loaiza: Their classmates had heard. Their teacher moved them away from the other kids, but the abuse kept coming. For example, one of Leida’s daughters opened her notebook one day and found pornography taped inside its pages. While Leida’s daughters were learning what their mother had paid for telling the truth, something else was happening. Other sex workers were hearing the story. And Leida’s phone started ringing. A woman called to ask for advice. The next day, another. Someone beaten. Someone raped. All of them, because they wouldn’t pay the cupo.

[00:14:28] Leida: Otra llamaba y llamaba y llamaba hasta que me fui sumiendo más y más y más y más.

[00:14:34] Lara Loaiza: Leida kept picking up. That’s how Leida started her own organization: Rosa Mujeres de Lucha, Women Who Fight. At the same time, Leida’s own case was crawling through the courts. While it did, she started helping other sex workers file their own complaints. And she started pushing politicians to actually regulate sex worker in Peru.

It was a tough sell. For many, quote-on-quote sex work normalizes sexual exploitation. Leida, on the other hand, believes it is a job, and those who practice it should be protected. That fire is still going, but by coming together — by having an organization, by having each other — Leida and the sex workers who called her phone finally had something they’d never had before: a voice. What they did not realize was that the worst was yet to come.

[00:15:32] Newswire: The Venezuelan prison gang, the toughest gang, they say, in the world Tren de Aragua.

[00:15:38] Lara Loaiza: And what was coming was an organization called the Tren de Aragua.

[00:15:42] Newswire: Tren de Aragua originated in a prison, a notorious prison in North Central Venezuela that was controlled by gang members.

[00:15:49] Lara Loaiza: They were Venezuelan. They were born in a prison — in the state of Aragua, which is where the name comes from. And as Venezuela collapsed politically, economically, socially, they ollowed their countrymen out of the country. Into Colombia. Into Chile. Into Peru.

[00:16:06] Newswire: Su extensión es imparable, una problemática que ya tiene presencia en diez de los 14 distritos de Lima.

[00:16:16] Lara Loaiza: By 2020, they were everywhere in Lima. The Tren wanted two things: money and fear. Fear made the money easier. And they found both, by going after sex workers. But first they had to clear the field. Get rid of the people who had been running the business for decades. So, they mapped the city. They figured out who ran what, and then they came for them: the pimps, the papis, the mamis.

[00:16:40] Ángela: Les empezaron a quemar sus casas de los, este, papis y las mamis a correrlos porque ellos se apropiaron de las plazas.

[00:16:50] Lara Loaiza: They burned down houses. They ran people out of town. Took the corners. With the papis and mamis gone, the Tren took over the cupo. Now the sex workers paid them, not the cops. What’s more, the Tren had standards: younger sex workers were good for business, older sex workers weren’t.

[00:17:07] Ángela: A las viejas, las botan. Les disparan en los pies.

[00:17:10] Lara Loaiza: They shot at their feet. Not to kill them. To tell them to leave. Ángela started going to the media. To anyone who would listen. To explain that something new was happening, something her organization hadn’t faced before.

[00:17:23] Ángela’s Interviewer: Cómo te ha ido, Ángela? Hacía tiempo que no conversábamos.

[00:17:26] Ángela: De mal en peor, y nadie nos hace caso.

[00:17:30] Lara Loaiza: Nobody listened. But the Tren wasn’t just hitting the sex workers who worked the streets, they were hitting the sex workers who worked online too. Here’s how it went. A man finds an ad. He sends a message. Books an hour. Asks for an address. Knocks on the door at the right time. And the woman opens the door expecting a client. But with the Tren, what she found was a gun in her mouth.

[00:17:54] Leida: Y dice vas a pagar tranquilita. Si no pagas, te matamos.

[00:17:58] Lara Loaiza: Pay, or we kill you, they would say. It wasn’t one woman. It was dozens, hundreds probably. Once again, the calls started for Leida’s organization. So, she and the others did what you’re supposed to do: they went to the cops.

[00:18:14] Leida: Nos están cobrando. Han llegado con armas. Nos dice que son de la mafia. Que son del Tren de Aragua.

[00:18:20] Lara Loaiza: They told the police what was happening: the extortion, the guns, the name of the group doing it.

[00:18:26] Leida: ¿Para qué vienen acá? Acá solamente se atiende a personas decentes, no putas.

[00:18:32] Lara Loaiza: The cops were rude. We don’t deal with whores, they told them. And the extortion kept coming. Sometimes the Tren wanted $100 in a single day. Some of these sex workers make 50 on a good day. Some of them had to choose between paying the Tren and feeding their kids. Some chose the Tren, others refused to pay at all. And the Tren told them clearly: pay or die. Leida and Ángela went back to the police. Different cops, same city. They told them the killings were coming, that it was only a matter of time. And they asked for protection.

[00:19:09] Leida: Así nos dijo el capitán. Paguen nomás, porque las van a matar si no pagan.

[00:19:14] Lara Loaiza: Just pay them, the captain said, or they’re going to kill you. In early 2022, in downtown Lima, the Tren did what they said they were going to do. A woman refused to pay. She was shot five times in the street. In broad daylight. In front of everyone. She wasn’t the only one. Many others followed. Mostly migrants — Venezuelan, Colombian, Ecuadorian. Then Peruvians. Lima didn’t seem to care.

[00:19:43] Leida: ¿Y qué decía la gente? Las matan por putas.

[00:19:46] Lara Loaiza: They got killed because they were whores, that’s what people said. Even some of the sex workers said it about each other.

[00:19:53] Leida: Y algunas compañeras callaban. Por putas nos matan.

[00:19:58] Lara Loaiza: Por putas nos matan. For being whores, they kill us.

[00:20:05] Lara Loaiza: It was only when the Tren expanded its list of victims that people began to pay attention. Restaurants, hotels, small businesses. Suddenly nobody was talking about whores anymore. Now, everybody was a target. And the Tren kept growing. They were fighting other gangs for control of neighborhoods, and they were winning. The cops weren’t doing much about it, but the sex workers kept resisting. And the Tren decided it was time to hit them harder. In February of 2023, four sex workers were killed in Lima in one week.

[00:20:42] Ángela: En esa semana hubo cuatro asesinatos.

[00:20:49] Lara Loaiza: Ángela knew all four. One of them was Rubí Ferrer. She was a trans woman. Peruvian. The Tren posed as clients, picked her up, and drove her to the edge of the city. They shot her more than thirty times. They filmed the whole thing. The whole murder. And they sent the video to sex workers all over Lima.

[00:21:11] Ángela: Te matan porque te matan.

[00:21:13] Lara Loaiza: As Angela told us, “They can kill you whenever they want”. After Rubí, the sex workers of Lima knew what the Tren could do. And how relaxed they were about doing it. Many of them stopped working. Locked themselves in. Stopped answering the phone.

[00:21:30] Ángela: Claro, este, todo eso nos ha costado. No tienes idea. Sudor y lágrimas.

[00:21:35] Lara Loaiza: Sweat and tears, Ángela said. That’s what it cost them just to stay alive. The ones who kept working tried to keep each other safe. WhatsApp groups to warn each other about new threats. Hotlines. Safe houses. They had to do it themselves. Nobody else was going to. And eventually, they took it to the streets.

[00:21:55] Ángela: Hemos tenido que hacer muchos plantones, muchas marchas para que nos hagan caso.

[00:22:01] Lara Loaiza: In February of 2024, María Fernanda and I went to one of those marches. There, hundreds of sex workers with red umbrellas — the symbol of sex workers around the world — clamored for their rights.

[00:22:17] Protester: Ahora.

[00:22:19] Lara Loaiza: What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. Hundreds of sex workers filled the streets of Lima with red umbrellas, with drums, with signs. We want to live. No more murders. Yes to life, no to cupos.

[00:22:37] Protester: No al cobro de cupo, nunca más

[00:22:40] Lara Loaiza: And somewhere in that crowd —

[00:22:43] Ángela: Estira, estira.

[00:22:44] Lara Loaiza:  — was Ángela. Helping. Organizing. The whole march was her doing.

[00:22:50] María Fernanda Ramírez: Ángela, ¿por qué estamos hoy acá ?

[00:22:52] Lara Loaiza: We asked Ángela why they were there.

[00:22:54] Ángela: En estos momentos, estamos en completo desamparo. Estamos solas.

[00:22:58] Lara Loaiza: They were on their own, she said. Completely. And they were marching for the ones who weren’t there anymore. The march had three stops: the National Police, the Ministry of Women, Congress. At each one they handed over a letter. The letter asked for protection from the Tren de Aragua. They also did a piece of street theater. Five sex workers leaned against the wall like they were waiting for clients. Ángela was one of them. Then a man in a mask walked out of the crowd, playing a member of the Tren, he pulled out a toy gun. And he fired. The sex workers fell. Bags of fake blood broke open on the pavement, they writhed for a while, and then they stopped. They lay face down, one on top of the other. No more screams. No nothing. Just bodies on the street. The day after the march a sex worker was killed in northern Lima. She had refused to pay the cupo. The Tren is believed to be responsible. By that point, no one in Lima could pretend they didn’t know what was happening. The killings weren’t a secret. The Tren wasn’t a rumor. But it didn’t stop. Meanwhile, Leida’s own case against the police abuse was finally coming to a close. After fifteen years of testimonies, appeals and reversals, the courts came to a verdict on the three police officers who had beaten and assaulted her. The three officers were sentenced to nine years in prison — for torture. It was the first time a Peruvian court had ruled that a sex worker had been tortured because she was a sex worker. But the larger problem, the killings of sex workers in Lima, that, didn’t stop. Peru has left these sex workers to fight on their own. Against the cops who extort them. Against the Tren that hunts them. They have each other, of course, and they have Leida, and they have Ángela, but that’s it.

[00:25:25] Leida: Porque muchas compañeras salen a trabajar y me dicen, yo no sé si volveré.

[00:25:31] Lara Loaiza: Many of the sex workers that work, leave for the day not knowing if they’ll come back. Some of them leave audio messages with Leida before they go. Goodbyes. Just in case they’re the next ones killed. Some of them, the migrants — Venezuelans, Colombians, Ecuadorians — ask Leida to send their bodies home. So, if the worst happens, at least they won’t be buried in a country that didn’t protect them, didn’t care about them. Since the Tren arrived in Peru, more than a hundred and ninety sex workers have been killed or disappeared. That number comes from Leida and Ángela. The Peruvian government doesn’t keep this count. Rubí. Priscila. Lis. Milenka. Rosmery. Milena. Gabriela. Jazmín. And many more. Leida has gotten used to counting. The dead. The disappeared. Her friends. And to knowing that the next name on the list could be hers.

[00:26:31] Leida: Nos dicen que nos van a matar y ya sabemos que nos van a matar.

[00:26:35] Lara Loaiza: Leida says she knows they’re going to kill her. They’ve been killing them all. And she knows nobody’s coming to help. All she can do is scream, while she’s still alive. So, someone hears it. So, the sex workers who follow, don’t have to scream the same thing.

[00:26:49] Leida: Y que nos maten gritando, que nos maten luchando

[00:26:53] Lara Loaiza: All she hopes for is that when they kill her, she’s still screaming.

[00:27:11] Steven Dudley: This show is in InSight Crime production. A special thanks to Leida and Ángela for trusting us, and for sharing their stories. Remember you can also listen to or share their story in Spanish. Before we go — a quick taste of what’s coming next week. 

We’re heading to Colombia’s Pacific Coast to meet a mother who watched the war come to her neighborhood. Who drove the wounded to the hospital — kids from their own block — and watched them die.

[00:27:40] Mother: A mí me tocó llevar a dos heridos al hospital esa noche. Dos jóvenes de mi barrio, de mi calle. Amigos. Vecinos. Y fallecieron.

[00:27:53] Steven Dudley: And whose own children started disappearing. One by one. Now about the episode you just heard. It was reported and ridden by Lara Loaiza and María Fernanda Ramírez. Edited by Tomás Uprimny, Liza Schmidt, and me, Steven Dudley. Elisa Roldán is our project manager and art director. Graphics by Isabella Soto. Sound design by Valentina Fonseca. And the cumbia music you’re listening to, that’s Juan Felipe Pulido.

And thank you to InSight Crime’s whole reporting, graphics, social media, editors, and administrative teams. If  you’re still with us: thank you. Getting a story like this on tape takes time: months of reporting. Flights. Hours of sitting in people’s living rooms, just listening. And to be blunt, doing it right costs money. Insight Crime is completely independent. No owner. Nobody telling us what to cover, or what to leave alone. That’s how we like it. And what keeps us going is listeners like you. So, if you can chip in from a one-time donation of $50 to an annual contribution, head to insightcrime.org/donate, and if donating isn’t an option right now, just pass this episode along. That helps more than you’d think.

See next week. From Buenaventura. Chao. Chao.