When Isabel* accepted the position of saleswoman at a store that her cousin, Catalina*, offered her outside of Venezuela, she never imagined that months later she would be lying on a road in Peru, pretending to be dead with a bullet in her neck.
At 22, Isabel didn’t want to miss the chance to work with her cousin in Mollendo, a city in the Arequipa department of southwestern Peru. The offer was her ticket to escape the political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. However, shortly after arriving in Peru, she would discover that the offer had been a deception and that she was at the mercy of a human trafficking network.
Isabel is one of the hundreds of Venezuelan women captured by human trafficking networks year after year. Her story is intertwined with a judicial case against at least 43 people accused of being part of Tren de Aragua. In various cities across Peru, this group has implemented a complex system for the recruitment, transportation, and sexual exploitation of women, girls, and adolescents.
The victims of this criminal scheme are referred to among sex workers as “the fined,” referencing how trafficking victims must repay a debt to their traffickers for the cost of their journey and support.
“They bring them fined,” said Roxi, a Venezuelan sex worker living in Lima. “They pay for everything, and when they arrive here, they come deceived, ready to be exploited.”
The Pink Arm
The route to exploitation usually begins online. For Isabel, it all started with messages from her cousin, who acted as the recruiter.
Recruiters are the first link in the human trafficking chain. They are responsible for identifying and tricking victims into agreeing to travel abroad.
Increasingly, trafficking networks use other women for this process, as they inspire more trust in the victims. Peruvian authorities have referred to these female recruiters as the “pink arm.”
“Girls arrive, often recruited by other girls who are already in the trafficking situation, that mechanism of using victims to recruit other victims,” said Joel Jabiles Eskenazi, coordinator of the Protection Unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Peru, to Insight Crime.
According to Isabel’s testimony and information gathered by prosecutors, Catalina, after convincing her to travel to Peru, sought the approval of a presumed leader of the Los Gallegos cell in Peru. Los Gallegos are a faction of Tren de Aragua that established itself in Peru in 2019, taking advantage of migration flows leaving Venezuela to expand into the Andean country.
Once they had the leader’s approval, Isabel, still convinced that it was a genuine job opportunity, began her journey to Peru. Catalina put her in touch with a supposed “travel advisor,” who handled the logistics of the transfer and covered the costs, which, according to case documents, vary depending on the country of origin. For women traveling from Venezuela, these “travel advisors” receive $500, and for those from Colombia, $300.
The advisor took Isabel to Ecuador. Once in the country, the man connected her with another operator, who purchased her tickets to Lima, from where she would travel to Mollendo, where Catalina supposedly lived.
Upon arriving in Mollendo, she did not meet her cousin but rather another woman who bluntly informed her that the promised job did not exist and that instead, she would have to work in nightclubs, or “chongos,” as they are known in Peru, to pay off her debt for the trip.
It was only at that moment that Isabel realized she had been trapped by a trafficking network.
Although she attempted to contact her cousin to clarify the situation and escape the nightmare she found herself in, she never succeeded. Case documents indicate that she lost all trace of Catalina, who stopped using her accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp.
Threats Even Against Family Members
The woman who received Isabel in Mollendo took her to a house where nine other women and a man lived, responsible for monitoring them to prevent escape. They informed her that she had to pay a debt to Los Gallegos for the costs of her journey, in addition to what they would charge her for housing and feeding her in Peru.
The debts or fines vary based on the nationality and origin of the victim. If they come from Colombia, the fine is $3,200, but if they arrive from Venezuela, the sum can reach almost $4,000, according to documents. For Isabel, who had accepted what she thought was a job as a saleswoman, paying that amount of money was practically impossible.
These fines are one of the methods of control used by groups like Los Gallegos to subjugate trafficking victims. Any act of disobedience is punished with an increase in the fine of between $250 and $500. Others, to pay off their debt, opt to recruit women like Isabel to take their place.
As the woman who received her in Mollendo had sentenced, Isabel was forced to work in a chongo. By the end of each day, none of the money remained for her. Case documents show that clients of the network paid about $34 for half an hour, $40 for an hour, and $186 for spending the night with one of the women. Everything they earned had to be handed over to the man who monitored them, both at the establishment and in the house where they slept, as part of their debt payment.
To maintain control over the victims, Los Gallegos not only use violence and intimidation but also employ other forms of coercion. Their strategy includes psychological manipulation accompanied by constant threats to harm their families, even in their countries of origin. The decentralized structure of Tren de Aragua and its presence in multiple countries enables them to locate and threaten their victims’ families, even if they are abroad.
“They no longer leave, they don’t escape because they know what can happen to their children and families in Venezuela,” said Ángela Villón, leader of Miluska Vida y Dignidad, an association of sex workers in Lima that has encountered firsthand cases of trafficking.
Additionally, the fined women are monitored constantly. To prevent them from seeking help or forming connections, they are moved from street to street and city to city regularly.
“They move them here for a week, they move them there for another week, … they even take them to provinces,” said Liliana, another Venezuelan sex worker residing in Lima.
No Way Out in Sight
Weeks after Isabel arrived in Mollendo, one of the women living with her managed to escape and reach the authorities. To avoid the police, Los Gallegos decided to move Isabel and the other women to Arequipa, the provincial capital. Once there, they forced them to work on the streets, while an armed man watched from a motorcycle.
Isabel, for her part, tried to escape twice. After the first failed attempt, they locked her in a room, preventing her from speaking with anyone. During the second attempt, she got further, reaching the transportation terminal, but once again she was caught. With the constant surveillance she faced, escaping was not easy. Furthermore, even if Isabel had managed to pay her debt to the group, it was almost impossible for them to let her go.
“There are cases where they pay and they are still exploited (…) they are not allowed to breathe at all. They have to do what they say,” Roxi said.
Judicial documents echo her testimony. The women who had paid off their debts had no option but to continue working and had to pay 150 soles (around $40) daily for being in Los Gallegos’ territory, as few had support networks that allowed them to escape exploitation or return to their families.
In interviews with InSight Crime, members of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Human Trafficking Division of the National Police of Peru (PNP) commented that most women rescued during anti-trafficking operations return to exploitation. Furthermore, out of 2,500 people rescued in 2023, only 5% have open investigations, according to PNP data. This is because the Peruvian judicial system initiates an investigation only when a person files a formal complaint, something that very few victims do for fear of facing retaliation.
“We have the limitation of being able to continue [the investigations], because many times we need to look for other pieces of evidence to determine that these are trafficking victims, because they do not accept it,” General Aldo Ávila Novia, head of the Human Trafficking Division of the PNP, said to InSight Crime. “It is very difficult for them to accept that they are victims due to the circumstances [of violence],” he added.
And the number of complaints is low. There are gaps in investigations and operations against human trafficking, and at times, sex workers are registered as trafficking victims. In other situations, according to authorities and officials from international and human rights organizations, victims do not seek help for fear that threats of violence against them or their families will come true or because of a lack of trust in authorities. Many women even return to situations of exploitation.
Meanwhile, reported cases continue to rise. While it is challenging to estimate the number of women and girls falling into human trafficking networks, the figures are disheartening and likely indicate underreporting by overwhelmed authorities.
In 2020, the PNP recorded 372 complaints of human trafficking in the country, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics of Peru. By 2022, the number increased to 631, of which 85.3% were women (538), and 153 were Venezuelans. For 2024, just in the first six months of the year, the PNP recorded 458 complaints, of which 78.7% of the alleged victims were women, and 54% were between 13 and 17 years old.
When Isabel attempted to escape, the punishment was swift.
“They made her put her hands on a table and beat her with the butt of a gun, telling her she had to do what they said, that she was theirs,” the judicial documents state.
Since then, the threats intensified. The criminals constantly beat her, took her phone to check conversations with her family, and even claimed to have sent people to Venezuela to find her relatives.
The Miraculous Exception to the Rule
One afternoon, around 2:00 p.m., two men arrived at Isabel’s room. They told her to get up and gather her things because she had to leave with them. It had been a short time since the capture of one of the group’s members. Although the documents are unclear, it seems that the police also detained Isabel at that moment and then released her.
They drove down a road. They told her they had to change her location to somewhere better and quietly asked what she had told the police, to which she replied that she hadn’t said anything.
After about three hours of driving, they made her get out of the car. One of the men handed her a phone, while the other pulled out a gun and shot her.
Isabel fell to the ground. The bullet had only grazed her. One of the men kicked her to ensure the job was done. She knew that if she moved, they would shoot her again, so she endured the pain. The last thing she heard them say was, “Get in, get in quickly, because this one is ready.”
Minutes later, she heard the car drive away and began to call for help. Someone helped her reach the police station, where her complaint was taken, and she was transferred to the hospital.
Although Isabel managed to escape from her situation of exploitation and today, the judicial case against her abusers is progressing in the Arequipa courts, she is the exception to the rule. Meanwhile, Tren de Aragua and its factions continue to reap large sums of money by exploiting women and girls who, desperate for a better future, remain trapped in their clutches.
*The names of the protagonists have been changed to protect their identities.
