PHOTO ESSAY: Fear grips Peru as crime surges ahead of presidential runoff on Sunday

TRUJILLO, Peru (AP) — Trujillo mourned its dead, killed in crime waves that have targeted this Peruvian city. Small business owners struggle and extortion by gangs is rampant as in many other places across the South American country.

Insecurity has emerged as a key concern ahead of a presidential runoff in Peru on Sunday, shaping people's daily routines and influencing how Peruvians see their country's future.

Over the past five years, extortion has increased fivefold, reaching nearly 29,000 reported cases in 2025. During the same period, killings have more than doubled, with authorities saying that 2,226 people were killed last year.

Criminal groups increasingly target small businesses, transport workers, market vendors and other entrepreneurs, demanding regular payments in exchange for allowing them to operate.

The impact extends far beyond the economic cost. Across the country, residents describe living with a constant sense of vulnerability as bomb attacks, kidnappings, killings and threats have surged.

It seems everyone in Peru knows someone who has been the victim of crime. Neighbors or loved ones have been extorted in order to keep their business open — or they have been kidnapped or killed.

Finding bodies on the streets or pulled out of ravines has become commonplace.

In some neighborhoods, businesses display symbols indicating they are paying extortion fees, while others invest heavily in private security to compensate for a limited police presence.

Security experts attribute the growing influence of organized crime to profits generated by illegal mining and other activities, as well as chronic underfunding of police investigative units and outdated technology. They also point to recent legal changes that have made it more difficult for authorities to detain suspects, seize criminal assets and dismantle criminal networks.

This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors.

Police officers raise the Peruvian flag outside a criminal investigations unit in Trujillo, Peru, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Giovana Rosas burns cables to extract copper for sale in the El Milagro district of Trujillo, Peru, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A police officer escorts a detainee accused of being part of a criminal gang after a news conference at a downtown police station in Trujillo, Peru, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

An officer guards an investigative police unit in Trujillo, Peru, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Police officers carry the body of Jose Perez from the ravine where he was found shot in Trujillo, Peru, Friday, May 30, 2026.(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A neighbor records the scene with a cellphone as police recover the body of Jose Perez from a ravine where he was found shot in Trujillo, Peru, Friday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A building damaged in an explosives attack that police say was linked to extortion stands in Trujillo, Peru, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Inmates make phone calls at El Milagro Prison in Trujillo, Peru, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Residents stand at the Mirador overlooking the El Porvenir neighborhood in Trujillo, Peru, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Gladys Saavedra, who works at an open-air market in Alto Trujillo and says she has been the target of gang extortion since 2018, speaks during an interview in Trujillo, Peru, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Ivan Diaz, a money lender, shows his hand with fingers he says were amputated by kidnappers who abducted him and later released him after a ransom was paid, in Trujillo, Peru, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Children carry flowers during the funeral of Gian Marco Garcia, who was killed by a hitman in El Porvenir, a district of Trujillo, Peru, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A man works at a tire shop adorned with a statue of Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo in the El Milagro district of Trujillo, Peru, Sunday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

An aerial view of the La Esperanza district in Trujillo, Peru, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

A map showing cases of extortion and murder in the La Esperanza district is displayed on the computer of an investigative police officer in Trujillo, Peru, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

An inmate lines up for lunch at El Milagro Prison in Trujillo, Peru, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Diane Aguilar, left, and her daughter Perla pose for a photograph with a portrait of Aguilar's husband, Oscar Lavado, who was killed by hitmen on motorbike as he was driving his car weeks earlier, in Trujillo, Peru, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Police officers display evidence during a news conference following the arrest of alleged members of a criminal gang in Trujillo, Peru, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Illuminated by the lights of a police patrol car, neighbors walk past a car repair and auto parts shop targeted in a dynamite attack in Trujillo, Peru, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Relatives and friends carry the coffin of Gian Marco Garcia, who was killed by a hitman in El Porvenir, a district of Trujillo, Peru, Monday, May 25, 2026.(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Relatives of Jose Perez mourn as police recover his body from a ravine where he was found shot in Trujillo, Peru, Friday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Inmates stand in a courtyard at El Milagro Prison in Trujillo, Peru, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday, but President Donald Trump disputed the claim and said talks were continuing.

The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, came as tensions flared in Israel’s separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.

But Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. "Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there’s no guarantee of reaching “a deal that’s acceptable.”

Iran has been trying to increase pressure on Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.

The conflicts have increasingly become conjoined, as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.

Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.

Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.

Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.

Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.

Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.

“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.

Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.

A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.

The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.

Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.

The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.

“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”

Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.

"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.

Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Qlaileh village, as it seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike is seen through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo)

A nurse looks through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital into a destroyed building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)

People walk at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Pedestrians and vehicles cross an intersection around Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Men sit at the gate of a mosque at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A woman walks at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People carry packages at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)