It’s November, springtime in Cancas, a coastal community in northern Peru, and the sea is calm; it only gets rough at the beginning of summer, which in the Southern Hemisphere falls at the end of the year, and in the last days of August. In the afternoons, when the sky is purple, the tide goes out and leaves behind a muddy beach populated by small crustaceans that scatter about as tourists amble by. The water, now a deep blue, is inhabited by sea lions, turtles, seahorses and crabs, as well as migratory humpback whales headed north to Colombia. Known as Mar de Grau, this is one of the most biodiverse regions of Peru’s marine territory and an area recently protected for its ecological importance. There are no major predators in the water, and seemingly no other dangers inhabiting it.

It’s been this way for centuries. Twenty years ago, however, the tides brought in something else. “There are pirates,” one young fisher here tells us as he watches the waves crash against the rocks.

More than 500 artisanal fishers live in Cancas, one of Peru’s last bastions of traditional fishing. Cancas is the capital of Canoas de Punta Sal district, which lies in the Tumbes region of northwestern Peru. It’s located just three hours from the border with Ecuador, across which pirates have routinely arrived since 2005 to exploit fishing villages along the Tumbes coast.

The pirate gangs, made up of Ecuadorians and Peruvians, assault artisanal fishers offshore. To reach the fishing vessels, the pirate boats are equipped with outboard motors and long-range weapons. When they begin boarding, they shoot at point-blank range; they tie up the crew and steal their fishing gear, navigational tools and engine, fleeing with the loot back across the maritime border into Ecuadorian waters, or, in some cases, to the nearby Peruvian cove of Puerto Pizarro.

At the regional level in Tumbes, there’s no official figure for how many fishers have been killed in pirate attacks. However, an internal report from the Tumbes Prosecutor’s Office for the Prevention of Crime, seen by Mongabay Latam, says pirates have killed 15 fishers in Puerto Pizarro and seven in Cancas as of 2021. A review of local news articles by Mongabay also identified at least 20 fishers killed in the Tumbes region since 2003.

“[The pirates] take our tools, cellphones — they leave the boat completely empty,” a local fisher tells us. “And they leave people stranded at sea. For those who refuse or go back to look … boom!” he says, mimicking the sound of a gunshot.

“We’ve already counted seven deaths in Cancas, that’s why we’re afraid,” says the fisher, whom we’re calling Álvaro for his own safety. “The deaths have come to nothing. The authorities ask us, ‘What can we do about the pirates? Where are you going to report this?’ But they file the paperwork away and there it stays. Of all the murders due to piracy that have occurred, none have been solved.”

Over the years, Tumbes residents have blocked roads to demand justice, but so far they’ve found no sign of it.

“We’re scared — it’s entrenched,” says Ulises, another local fisher.

Black flags and impunity

To learn more about the pirate attacks, Mongabay Latam traveled to the Tumbes coast in November and December 2024, interviewing more than 10 fishers.

When discussing the subject, the Cancas fishers whisper, fidget and look around often, as if they feel they’re being watched. They don’t make eye contact, and most don’t want to give their name or have their voices recorded. In several cases they leave in the middle of an interview, expressing regret at their decision to talk and wanting to avoid any retaliation for providing information. The pirates have established an invisible empire of fear and terror.

“I saw them 14 years ago,” one fisher says. “They were there suddenly and boarded the boat.

“They shot and killed my brother and my partner,” he goes on. “They wounded me and I sailed to the coast for six hours, bleeding to death. We hadn’t done anything to them. We didn’t even resist. They were in two speedboats. They were from Ecuador.”

The fisher speaks hurriedly and appears on constant alert, as if sensing danger even though it’s a calm, sunny morning, the breeze swirling around the courtyards of the small houses built just steps from the sea. There’s no one else nearby, he doesn’t want his voice recorded, nor will he give his name. After speaking for some time, he says he feels uncomfortable and wants to leave, asking us to think of his family.

The fisher no longer leaves the village, saying that despite the years, he’s still afraid. Ulises, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, tells us separately, “If they find out that journalists have come to talk with him, things could go badly for him.”

Before we leave the village, the fisher’s wife asks if we want to see his wounds. A long scar runs across his abdomen. Fourteen years later, none of the pirates involved in the attack have been caught, and there’s no legal process underway. The fisher hasn’t returned to the sea since then.

“We’re worried about this issue,” another fisher tells us. “We’d love for international human rights organizations to come here so we can feel protected. These gangs are looking for ways to silence those who provide information.”

According to the United Nations, maritime piracy affects the trade, safety, navigation and well-being of the people from the sea. For those who live in the fishing villages in the three provinces that make up the Tumbes region, piracy is a scourge that has robbed villagers of their peace and the lives of their family members, and is affecting their livelihood.

“In the north we’ve been suffering for several years,” says Javier Pazo, mayor of Canoas de Punta Sal. “In Cancas, we’ve suffered the deaths of our fishers. Last year, around 20 boats were attacked. [That’s why] we sent a letter to the president of the republic.”

The response they received, Pazo adds, was from a committee of generals informing them that they had a monitoring plan.

For Pazo, this represents an obvious apathy on the part of the government. Even so, the district government of Canoas de Punta Sal continued to petition various high-level authorities, including President Dina Boluarte, former defense minister Jorge Chávez Cresta, the Coast Guard, and the Peruvian Congress. However, after a year of pleas, no results are in sight and the responses provided aren’t satisfactory.

“We were given a meeting at the Ministry of Defense but the [former] minister [Chávez Cresta] was not there; his adviser saw us,” Pazo says. “They show us results that do not reflect [actions].”

Emilio Huaco is the naval office in charge of the Coast Guard station in the Tumbes district of Zorritos, which has jurisdiction over maritime enforcement for the region. In response to a request for public information made to the Tumbes Prosecutor’s Office for the Prevention of Crime, the latter responded that according to information provided by Huaco, 515 operations were carried out between 2022 and 2024 to counter attacks at sea. Fishers and local authorities say they’re not happy with the outcome of these patrols, as no one has been arrested and there have been no interceptions of pirate vessels. In addition, the Coast Guard report details that in the last three years there have been no robbery-related deaths at sea. However, in 2023, the killing of fisher Fidel Rodríguez Peña was reported. In 2021, Pedro Santos Calle and Dante Tume Morales were also killed by pirates.

To monitor the sea around Tumbes, the Navy has one maritime patrol boat, two interception patrol boats and four coastal patrol boats — not enough, fishers say, to tackle piracy.

Juan Carlos Sueiro, the fisheries director for the Peru office of Oceana, a global marine conservation NGO, says the government has no systematic strategy to tackle maritime piracy. He adds that leaks about imminent operations undermine the outcome of the raids.

Sueiro says it’s important for the authorities that cases of killings and attacks don’t make it into the national news, since this is a problem that doesn’t exist elsewhere in Peru. The reason Tumbes has a piracy problem, he says, comes down to its location on the border. In Ecuador, maritime piracy is a long-running problem. Prosecutors in Ecuador’s Santa Elena province, five hours by boat from Tumbes, have recorded 526 piracy-related cases as of 2022. In Peru, such reports are minimal or go unrecorded.

In the documents shared by the Tumbes Prosecutor’s Office for the Prevention of Crime, and in six police reports filed from 2020-2024, fishers who survived pirate attacks indicate that the gangs are Ecuadorian and possess long-range weapons. They typically act brutally, fast, and with no apparent motive. Prosecutors contend that stealing fish is the pirates’ main objective, although the fishers deny this. When an artisanal fishing boat is seized, the pirates steal its engine, probes, navigational instruments and fishing gear. After dismantling the vessel, they throw its crew overboard, regardless of how far out to sea they are.

The loot is taken back to Ecuadorian land (which can be reached in just two hours) or in Puerto Pizarro, where, protected by mangroves, the pirates can land safely. On the black market in Ecuador, navigational instruments are highly valued. According to the fishers we speak with, engines are also in high demand. Sometimes the pirates demand a ransom for the return of hijacked boats.

The Peruvian Navy told Mongabay Latam that it had identified the pirate gangs and has already collected information to act against them.

The most prominent government action against maritime piracy took place in 2018, when the ”Puerto Pizarro Pirates” gang, led by Ecuadorian Willian Alberto Banchón Suárez, was dismantled. According to prosecutors, 43 people were arrested along with Banchón, including his lieutenant, Andrés Miñán Martínez, two members of the Navy, and a noncommissioned police officer, who, according to the report, was accused of leaking information to the suspects about law enforcement operations. Six years later, most of those arrested are free, including Miñán, though he was caught again in 2023 for drug trafficking. That same year, the Judicial Regulatory Office requested the dismissal of Edwin Anselmo Cohaila Nina, a former judge in Tumbes, for not immediately applying preventive detention against members of the gang.

Although the investigations continue, the fishers say they’re wary of the fact that the process, so widely publicized at the time, hasn’t yielded the expected results. In fact, it’s strengthened their distrust of the authorities. “We didn’t trust the Coast Guard,” one fisher said. “When the piracy was uncovered, it was shown that there were members of the police who were complicit with the pirates, as well as some members of the Coast Guard. That has had a huge impact on us.”

What makes the situation in northern Peru even more serious is that piracy has begun to put even more pressure on fishers. For two years now, the pirates have been extorting the fishers for protection fees — paying to be allowed to work without being attacked. This indicates the actions of well-structured criminal organizations with sufficient information on fishing routines. The result has been a hollow sense of calm: as long as the fishers keep paying, there will be no attacks or deaths.

Pay up or die

The situation has escalated so much in Tumbes that the pirates have networks of informants in the ports. In many cases, the fishers know who these are, but don’t report them for fear of reprisals.

“You did well in looking for us, but you can’t talk to just anyone about this,” Ulises tells us at the start of our interview. He’s agreed to talk to us in a deserted local restaurant, where he asks the waitress to turn up the volume of the music. Although his voice is barely audible, he explains how the pirates collect fees, and describes the work of the bahía, those who inform the pirates from land about everything that happens in the ports.

The information Ulises shares matches the accounts provided by four other fishers.

Carlos, an artisanal fisher and tourism promoter, says the pirates know each boat’s captain and owner from the registration number. They also know the names of their crew members, what species they fish, and where they dock. Ulises says the pirates give fishers who pay the protection money a distinctive flag so they can be identified at sea. They collect the money in person at the fishers’ homes, though they also accept bank transfers. According to Carlos, the amount that each fisher pays varies.

“If I pay them, they give me a card, they call me to pay them monthly, some have even said, ‘You can’t tell anyone about this because we know who your family are, we know where you live,’” says another fisher, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Now these groups of criminals come to collect payments from our homes on a motorbike. If we say anything, they might say, ‘He lives in such and such house’ – the reprisals might not be on land, they could be at sea while on the boat, with people.”

David, not his real name, a fishing leader from Máncora, who’s been an artisanal fisher since he was 12, says fishers must pay 260 soles (about $70) to be able to navigate the waters without fear. In Puerto Pizarro, the amount can reach $100.

“To fish in the Máncora bank you have to pay a fee,” he says. “That’s why we don’t go there. Anyone who goes there and doesn’t pay up is attacked. The Navy doesn’t do anything. This fees situation began in Puerto Pizarro and has now spread to other coves.”

Fishers who oppose or publicly denounce this extortion are threatened and their boats are marked. At sea, this marking allows the pirates to identify “enemy” boats and attack them.

“They’re already paying a fee to go out to work at sea,” Mayor Pazo confirms, adding some fishers had visited his office to report the situation. “Two months ago, five boats from Cancas were attacked. The fishers visited [my office] and I asked them if they had paid a fee. They said yes, but that the person in charge of collecting the fees had not given the money to the [leader] of the gang.”

Pazo shows copies of his petitions for help to President Dina Boluarte and the Navy. “Honestly, we’ve never had an answer from the [national] government,” he says.

One way in which the fishers have tried to avoid attacks is to sail toward the fishing banks in groups, accompanied by the Coast Guard. According to Pazo, that hasn’t worked either. “It seems that they’ve simply given up, paid the fees and continued working.”

According to David, the fishers have agreed to pay the pirates’ protection fees because they don’t want to lose their gear or their lives. In a vulnerable sector like the fishing industry, losing an engine or a net can mean an unrecoverable economic loss. Sometimes the consequences are far worse: David lost two friends to pirates five years ago.

“José Carrera Querevalu was attacked and murdered at sea,” he says. “He’d been fishing for over 45 years, and they killed him. They arrived on a yacht, shooting. He stood up and the bullet went through his heart. One of the pirates said, ‘We’ve killed a man,’ and they fled. Their outboard motors run faster than the patrol boat. Another crew member was also injured during the attack. He didn’t want to fish anymore following that and became a carpenter instead.”

David’s voice, initially full of anger, changes and breaks. “We marched through the town, we blocked the Pan-American Highway, but no one was ever caught. Now José’s widow is a domestic worker.”

David’s other slain friend was Jesus Ruíz. He’d bought a boat and was shot in the head, dying in front of his children. “They were well-liked in the village, hard-working people, good friends, and the pirates ended their lives.”

No reports, no crime

Although there are hundreds of victims of robberies at sea, everything is unofficial.

Carlos Álvarez Rodríguez, the chief prosecutor for Tumbes, says the crime rate at sea in 2024 was low, hence prosecutors didn’t carry out any preventive activities last year.

“Over the course of this year, and to date, there have been no reports in the Police Complaints Registration System [SIDPOL] of any crimes against artisanal fishers and/or their vessels at sea,” is the full response from the Prosecutor’s Office for the Prevention of Crime, which reached this conclusion after reviewing information from police stations along the Tumbes coast.

To the fishers, this is outrageous: they say dozens of boats were attacked at sea in 2024. The statement also contradicts the information provided to Mongabay Latam by the Navy and the police about the number of complaints recorded.

Oceana’s Sueiro says the lack of official reporting doesn’t mean crime isn’t happening. The fishers we speak with says incidents go unreported because they’re afraid. According to Sueiro, the work should focus on police intelligence, with long-term investigations and strategies leading to the dismantling of the criminal organizations.

“You go and make a report and file your complaint with the Coast Guard. But you’re told ‘come back tomorrow, come back next week, we’re locating them…’ – they don’t locate anyone though. They say that they’ll carry out unannounced operations, but no one knows whether they will or not. You can’t report these criminals because [the pirates] mark you,” says Álvaro, the fisher we speak to earlier.

Pazo, the mayor of Canoas de Punta Sal, held several meetings with various government officials in the capital, Lima. He says he came away convinced that the government will only take action if there’s evidence and a report made out.

“They’ve said that if there are no reports, then [the crime] in their view is not established. We proposed the implementation of a mechanism that protects whistleblowers because otherwise they will not report the crime. [The fishers] have said that they won’t report it,” Pazo says.

According to the government’s Economic Transparency portal, so far this year more than 1.7 billion soles ($456 million) has been transferred to the Navy as part of its budget. Of this amount, 33 million soles ($8 million) has been allocated for “Control and Surveillance of the Aquatic Environment,” but the ledger entry doesn’t specify which maritime jurisdictions this money has been sent to.

Last September, Cancas authorities met with Huaco, the Coast Guard chief in Zorritos, to request an assessment of the situation and learn about prevention strategies. According to Pazo, however, Huaco insisted that fishers must report an incident for patrols to go out.

Mongabay Latam contacted the Navy by phone and email multiple times for information about its actions to tackle piracy, with the team even visiting the headquarters of the Port Captaincy of Zorritos. We received no response by the time this article was originally published.

Mongabay Latam also contacted the Ecuadorian Embassy in Peru to determine whether it was aware of the participation of Ecuadorian nationals in pirate gangs and the actions being taken to address the issue. There was also no response from the embassy.

In the 17th century, pirates perpetrated their crimes against fishers from mysterious islands and under the cover of fog and sea mist. Now, apathy and an ineffective government strategy are what allow these criminals to act with impunity.

Banner image: Fishermen must pay the equivalent of about $70 to be able to sail without fear. In Puerto Pizarro, the protection fee can reach $100. Image by Leandro Amaya C. for Mongabay Latam.

This article was first published here in Spanish on Jan. 20, 2025.