Police on Monday arrested two people in connection to a robbery of about 10 kilograms of gold in the airport of the jungle city of Puerto Maldonado, state news agency Andina reported.
Police in the Madre de Dios region said they arrested two men, both of whom are 26-years-old. On Sunday, armed bandits opened fire in the Padre Aldamiz airport in Puerto Maldonado, injuring at least one person. The bandits took a backpack from one individual that contained about 10 kilograms of gold. The individual was planning to travel to Cusco.
“What happened here in the airport has never been seen before,” an unidentified woman was reported as saying.
Madre de Dios is known for being at the center of an illegal gold rush that is destroying large swaths of Peru’s Amazon rainforest. Experts estimate that at least 10 percent of Peru’s gold is produced in Madre de Dios. Almost all of the gold that comes out of the region is produced informally or illegally.
