Peru's Attorney General's Office is now juggling 22 separate case files covering more than 300 citizens allegedly tricked into fighting on Russia's front lines in Ukraine, and prosecutors say the number keeps growing. An update delivered to victims' families this past Friday, paired with the investigation's first arrest and a new international human-rights briefing, shows how scattered family complaints have hardened into one of Latin America's largest trafficking probes connected to Russia's war.
A Caseload That Has Nearly Tripled Since June
Back in late June, authorities were still working from a much smaller set of complaints: roughly three dozen formal reports filed by relatives who said loved ones had disappeared after taking supposed jobs abroad, according to reporting that cited Peru's Foreign Ministry. That figure has since multiplied nearly tenfold.
Senior prosecutor Rocío Gala Gálvez, who coordinates Peru's specialized human-trafficking units nationwide, met with affected families this past Friday to walk through where each case stands. Her office splits the current caseload two ways: one dossier held by organized-crime prosecutors covers 202 victims on its own, while 21 separate trafficking files account for the rest of the more than 300 identified so far, spread across Lima's northern and central districts, Callao, La Libertad, Huánuco and Cusco.
The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, tracks a wider universe of cases that haven't necessarily become formal criminal complaints. As of this past June, it had lodged 247 individual appeals with Moscow seeking word on nationals now enlisted with Russian forces. That gap between the ministry's broader diplomatic outreach and the narrower prosecutorial caseload says something on its own: not every family has filed charges, even once a relative's whereabouts have been confirmed.
Inside the Ate Arrest — And What Happened Since
The investigation produced its first detention on Sept. 7, when Lima Norte's Second Preparatory Investigation Court authorized a seven-day preliminary hold against a suspect identified in official documents only by his initials, L.V. Investigators, working with prosecutor Luisa Quispe Asmat, raided a home in Ate's Santa Clara neighborhood, seizing electronic devices, credit cards and cash in both soles and dollars, with the NGO Aerial Recovery assisting the operation.
The suspect allegedly recruited a victim from Ate between March and April, promising a $2,600 monthly wage and a cost-free trip to Russia. Once the man landed, he was reportedly put through medical screening for military service and pressured into signing a Russian-language contract promising a $26,000 bonus he says he never received. The case surfaced only after he reached his family from Russia, prompting his sister to file the complaint that triggered the raid. By the time prosecutors briefed families this past Friday, the victim had already made it back to Peru, according to the prosecutor overseeing the case.
The Human Cost, By the Numbers
Peru's Foreign Ministry offers the government's most complete official tally: 459 citizens recruited as of Aug. 9, with 11 confirmed deaths, 114 unaccounted for and three held as prisoners of war by Ukrainian forces. Thirty-one Peruvians have already been pulled out of Russia altogether, the ministry says — 28 of them home, the other three choosing to stay in Europe rather than return.
Those official figures sit well below some earlier estimates from lawyers representing the families. Attorney Percy Salinas told a local television channel back in May that at least 13 Peruvians had already died, a figure relayed through the AFP wire service that predates — and exceeds — the government's later count. Salinas separately estimated in May that around 600 citizens had been lured since the previous October, and by June was telling reporters he believed at least 800 Peruvians were currently fighting for Russia — both considerably higher than the 459 the government would confirm two months later. None of these gaps have been publicly reconciled.
Part of a Global Pattern
The Peruvian cases fit into a broader reckoning with Russia's foreign-recruitment machine. A new Amnesty International briefing published Sept. 10 concluded that Russia's use of deception, coercion and exploitation to enlist foreigners often meets the legal threshold for human trafficking, drawing on interviews with prisoners of war from eight countries — Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Somalia and South Africa. Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said the practices documented "amounts to human trafficking, as defined under the UN's Palermo Protocol."
Peru surfaced in that research too, though through a different channel: lawyers representing Peruvian families, rather than POW interviews, supplied Amnesty's information on the country. Those lawyers told the organization they are currently assisting roughly 200 families and are aware of at least 300 further, similar cases. According to their account, recruiters — often working through Colombia-registered agencies — have earned about $2,000 for every person they brought in since 2025, with recruits typically flown to Russia within days of first contact. Once there, the lawyers said, recruits were pressured into signing powers of attorney lasting anywhere from five to fifteen years, or with no end date at all, handing third parties control of their bank accounts. Peru's embassy in Moscow has helped at least 10 former recruits return home, according to the same lawyers — a separate channel from the Foreign Ministry's broader evacuation count.
What Comes Next
Prosecutors still need to establish how each recruit was contacted, what was promised, and whether the arrangement crossed from a voluntary contract into fraud or coercion — a distinction that will decide which cases ultimately become trafficking charges. Peru's diplomats keep pressing Russia's embassy in Lima for word on citizens whose whereabouts remain unclear, even as the mission has maintained that those who signed contracts did so with full knowledge of the risks.
For families gathered in Lima this past Friday, the update offered progress more than resolution. With 22 files still open and the confirmed victim count still climbing past 300, prosecutors haven't said when the investigation might conclude — or how many more Peruvians may yet surface in Russian ranks.
