La Rinconada: Zone of Threats and Challenges to National Security

Abstract

This article comprehensively analyzes the threats to national security in La Rinconada, Puno, focusing on organized crime, informal and illegal mining, environmental contamination and the public health crisis. In this region, various criminal organizations operate, dedicated to gold trafficking, smuggling and transnational crime, consolidating criminal structures with access to weapons and illicit financing. Their territorial control, based on violence and corruption, not only weakens state authority, but also exploits mine workers and monopolizes the illegal trade in inputs. Moreover, its actions sustain a parallel clandestine economy that finances illicit activities at the national and international levels. In this context, the objective is to understand how the lack of state intervention and the interests of certain groups have allowed this region to become a nucleus of illicit activities that compromise the stability and development of the country. In order to address this problem, it is essential to make the political class, institutions and society as a whole aware of the urgency of generating and implementing a comprehensive national security strategy. This should be capable of dismantling criminal networks and eliminating the links of certain actors with illegal mining, which would allow for a sustainable economic, social and environmental recovery. The methodology employed is based on a qualitative research analysis of phenomenological character that includes visits and interviews in the area, as well as the review of socioeconomic and environmental studies with national and international sources. This leads to the main conclusion that, without comprehensive and sustained state intervention, La Rinconada will consolidate as a stronghold of Transnational Organized Crime (TOC), with direct repercussions on national security and governance of the country. Consequently, to avoid this scenario, it is imperative to articulate a strategy that combines security measures, mining formalization and socioeconomic development, ensuring the effective presence of the State and the eradication of the criminal structures that currently dominate the region.