Peru’s youngest ever contract killer: Hitman, 12, arrested after gunning down three rival gang members and a policeman during wild shootout

Boy said to have been part of a gang that opened fire in a Peruvian café

He and his alleged accomplices operated extortion ring in Chincha, Ica

They were arrested after a raid by Peru's Criminal Investigation Department



A hitman who led a shootout in Peru during which a policeman and a rival gang member were killed and two others were injured has been revealed as a 12-year-old boy.

Police say Nabil Blanco Cerda is the youngest hitman who has ever been arrested in the country after he was held along with alleged teenage accomplices in Chincha, in the country's Ica region.

He was said to be part of a gang that opened fire in a café, killing a rival gangster and injuring two others, then cutting down a policeman in a hail of bullets as they made their escape.

Under arrest: Alleged members of the gang which included a 12-year-old hitman are searched after their arrest by Peru's Criminal Investigation Department in the town of Chincha, in the country's Ica region

Agents of Peru's elite Criminal Investigation Department, the Latin American nation's equivalent of the FBI, finally arrested the gang in an armed raid on Sunday.

The youngster, together with two 16-year-olds and a number of adults, had allegedly been recruited by Edwin Lopez Gabriel, a mob leader known as 'Loco Peluza', as part of a mafia-style extortion ring.

Police say that Gabriel had set up a trade union in order to cover his criminal activities and had used the gang to intimidate businessmen into paying protection money and to wipe out rivals.

Operating under the guise of the Civil Construction union, they are said to have stalked the streets of Chincha dealing drugs and extorting cash in a reign of terror which has been linked to four other killings and more than 30 assaults.

'For months [Gabriel] covered up his crimes by pretending to be union leader,' said one of the officers who caught him.

In total, 16 people were arrested by police who said they were shocked to find that the gang's hit squad was led by the 12-year-old, who would act as the enforcer while collecting illegal taxes.

The discovery of such a young boy involved in violent crime in the country raises the spectre of Brazilian-style gang warfare, in which the youths of that country's ghettoes are enlisted into gangs, sometimes before reaching adolescence.

The film City of God gives a fictionalised account of the kinds of violence that the Brazilian favelas have become notorious for.



City Of God: The arrest of such a young boy on suspicion of involvement in violent crime and murder raises the spectre of Brazilian-style ghetto violence in Peru

The beginning of the end for the gang came with the March 2 shootout at a Chincha cafe. Members opened fire, killing former convict Miguel Santillan Reymundo, 32, and injuring Marvin Fajardo and Cecilia Sánchez Velásquez Dianderas.

Minutes later they shot police Lieutenant Eric Lévano Castilla, 29, six times as he tried to arrest them.

A Criminal Investigation Department spokesman said that, along with alleged ringleader Gabriel and the three minors police arrested Roberto Parra Belleza, José Llerena Enríquez, Elvis Medina Bernaola, Jhonatan Asencio Llancari, Miguel Romero Palla, Víctor Tasayco Talla, Ciro Páucar Martínez, Samir Roberto Falla, Steven Moreno Ramos, Luis Cárdenas Chacón y Néstor Echegaray Guillén on suspicion of involvement in the gang.



