Mayors, Police, and Prosecutors in Crosshairs as Chile’s Criminal Groups Expand

A wave of threats and killings against politicians and police officers in Chile underscores how organized crime is increasingly targeting officials, creating an early challenge for President José Antonio Kast’s security agenda. 

One of the more startling incidents came on September 27 in Santiago, the country’s capital, when a routine police operation in Lo Espejo commune ended with the fatal shooting of Carabinero officer Cristopher Andrés Aguilera Fernández. Aguilera was conducting vehicle inspections in the Las Dunas neighborhood when he came across a group on the street, and shooting broke out. The reasons for the firefight are being investigated. 

The alleged gunman, 28-year-old Venezuelan national Brayan Farías Díaz, was killed in the attack. Díaz was previously arrested and released earlier this year for his role in a party where drugs and weapons were found. 

SEE ALSO: Safe Chile Meets Extreme Gang Violence

A few weeks earlier, police said they had discovered a plan to murder Mayor Christopher White of the San Bernardo commune in Chile’s Metropolitan Region. The plan was reportedly uncovered during the manhunt for Juan Flores Valenzuela, alias “Indio Juan,” and involved a local criminal group. 

For his part, Flores Valenzuela escaped prison in February this year while serving a life sentence for the femicide of his ex-partner and holds an extensive criminal record. The alleged plan to murder White was interpreted by sources close to the investigation as a response to Mayor White’s measures against criminal groups. 

This year, the mayor of Peñalolén in Chile’s Metropolitan Region, Miguel Concha, received threats following the demolition of houses connected to drug trafficking interests. The mayor of Lo Espejo, also in the Metropolitan Region, Javiera Reyes, received threats after a number of municipal actions in the area. Both Concha and Reyes have previously been threatened and have large state security details.

In all, the number of mayors under state protection in the Metropolitan Region doubled from four  to eight since July 2024, according to the Attorney General’s Office. And according to El País, 17 out of 52 mayors in the Metropolitan Region have received death threats.. 

Law enforcement and prosecutors have also been in the crosshairs. In 2023 and 2024, two officers were killed by groups with links to Tren de Aragua, according to local police. A suspect in the killing of one of these officers, the Carabinero Alejandro Ortiz Vásquez, has been identified by investigators as a member of Brazil’s First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC). And the Attorney General’s Office said in September that 18 prosecutors have special protection due to threats.

Why Criminal Groups Are Targeting Chile’s Officials

Authorities say public officials are increasingly being targeted because they obstruct criminal control over their illicit markets and territories. But the threats are putting pressure on Chile’s ability to maintain authority by eroding the strength of law enforcement to strike criminal groups when they themselves feel vulnerable. 

“The tipping point occurs when an organization acquires the effective capacity to influence behavior, impose rules, or determine what the state or the community can and cannot do within a given territory,” Luis Toledo, the director of the Center of Studies for Action and Prevention in Public Security and Organized Crime at Universidad San Sebastián, told InSight Crime. 

Threats come from transnational organized crime groups as well as Chilean groups. 

A Tren de Aragua faction, known as “Los Gallegos,” operating from Arica’s prison, planned to plant a car bomb in December 2024 in front of an Arica court allegedly in retaliation for the conviction of 34 of its members the month prior, and possibly to facilitate a daring escape, according to prosecutors. Group chats were discovered during the investigation that also showed these groups had collected the personal information of prosecutors and judges.

Kast’s Security Push Leaves Mayors Exposed

The first months of Kast’s presidency have been dominated by the restructuring of the state’s response to the advance of organized crime in Chile. 

Unlike most Latin American countries, Chile does not have a long history of beating back criminal groups. 

In August, a few months after his inauguration, Kast presented his Agenda Against Organized Crime and Terrorism (Agenda contra el Crimen Organizado y el Terrorismo – ACOT). ACOT is a sweeping bill that will focus on a constitutional reform to better enable the capture and conviction of criminal organizations. But it fails to focus on the structural causes of Chile’s current insecurity, professor Claudio Fuentes from Chile’s Diego Portales University told DW.

SEE ALSO: Transnational Organized Crime Is Feeding Growing Violence in Chile

A law that took effect this August strengthened communal security councils and created operational coordination committees for local security. This places mayors closer to the points where the state confronts illicit markets and territorial disputes. 

But they remain excluded from Article 391 bis of the Penal Code, which criminalizes conspiracy to murder judges, prosecutors, public defenders, police, and prison officers because of their duties. Following the investigation into the threats against Mayor White, two bills have been filled to close the gap. 

Pablo Zeballos, Director of Southern Cone Projects at IBI Consultants and sits on the Security Ministry’s advisory panel of experts, agrees with Toledo, what matters is whether the state carries out investigations and territorial interventions after a threat, because protecting local officials is crucial but not enough. 

Featured Image: Estado de Chile (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 CL); Marcellablues (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0); Associated Press (AP).