Residents in an Andean town near Peru’s southern border with Bolivia took justice into their own hands early Monday morning by drowning a father and son who they suspected of killing a 30-year-old man.
According to daily La República, Lorenzo Mamani Vilca and his son were captured by the mob in the town of Ilave, in Puno Department, around midnight on Sunday. The mob accused the father and son of killing the man, who allegedly did not pay a debt from a livestock purchase.
After the men were captured, municipal guards arrived some 30 minutes later and tried to persuade the mob to hand them over to police. Instead, they dragged them to the Ilave river where they were subsequently drowned.
Vigilante justice is not new to Ilave. The town made international headlines in April 2004 when thousands of its residents dragged their mayor, Cirilo Robles, into the street and beat him to death for alleged corruption. Robles was later exonerated.
