13 workers kidnapped from a Peruvian gold mine are found dead

View of the Sermigold mine in Arequipa, Peru, Sunday, May 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Fernando Mojito)

LIMA, Peru — The bodies of 13 security guards kidnapped from a major Peruvian gold mine just over a week ago were found Sunday, the mining company said, their deaths coming as violence escalates in the Andean nation’s crucial mining industry.

The Peruvian company, La Poderosa, said that a search-and-rescue team had recovered the staff members’ remains Sunday. It blamed their abduction on informal miners allegedly linked to criminal gangs that ambushed the gold mine on April 26.

Peruvian police and the country’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

La Poderosa, a private firm based in Peru’s capital of Lima, said that criminal groups fighting for control of the mine in Peru’s remote northwestern city of Pataz have killed 39 of the company’s workers since it began extraction in 1980, including the latest 13.

In a particularly brazen incident in December 2023, illegal miners attacked the same Poderosa mine with explosives, killing nine people and wounding 15. La Poderosa sent in more security guards in response to the string of attacks.

A major gold and copper supplier for the world, Peru is unique in allowing informal miners to operate with some protections as long as they plan to legalize their operations. But illegal mining quickly boomed into a vast industry as the metals became increasingly lucrative, new mining techniques emerged and the government struggled to mount a response.

With much of Peru awash in a wave of crime that prompted the government to declare a state of emergency last month, reports of extortion from artisanal miners and entrepreneurs in the country’s northern mining area have surged in recent months.