Overview
- The INPE-led search at Cochamarca, which took place on Sunday, May 24, unearthed three mobile charger heads, an electronic energy-transmission device, and a handcrafted wooden charging station buried behind the prison kitchen.
- Early on Monday, May 25, a grenade and an extortion note were left at the main gate of Miguel Castro Castro; police cordoned the area and UDEX explosives specialists neutralized the device without injuries.
- INPE president Raúl Inga Garay personally supervised inspections at both sites and invoked a 'tolerance zero' policy that includes preventive isolation for implicated inmates and potential transfers or strict disciplinary action for staff or prisoners found responsible.
- The Policía Nacional and the Ministerio Público have opened criminal investigations into the grenade threat and the origin of the contraband, while INPE has started internal administrative probes and reinforced perimeter and internal security checks.
- Peru's prisons face persistent organized-crime use of smuggled phones and improvised chargers to run extortion and other crimes from inside, a pattern that these recent operations aim to disrupt but that will require sustained audits of staff, transfers of key suspects, and ongoing counterintelligence work.