Moment hundreds of Peru police raid properties in Lima and arrest 18 in crackdown on illegal arms trafficking - months after Ecuadorian presidential candidate was murdered

Peruvian authorities have arrested 18 people as part of an investigation into an arms trafficking ring and its role in the 2023 assassination of an Ecuadorian presidential candidate.

At least 600 police officers raided homes and offices in Lima and in the Tumbes, Cajamarca and Piura regions along Peru's border with Ecuador on Wednesday.

Among those arrested were Jorge Lamela and Melchor Sanjinez, who have been identified as the ringleaders.

Jorge Chavez, who oversees the South American nation's prosecutor's office against organized crime, said the defendants used three companies to import weapons, mostly from the United States and Turkey.

The scheme involved using 'legal loopholes' in which they sought out people with low incomes to apply for and acquire licenses and purchase the firearms.

On Wednesday, Peruvian authorities arrested 18 members of an arms trafficking organization who sold one of the guns that was used in the assassination of Ecuadorian Fernando Villavicencio (pictured) on August 9, 2023

Some of the weapons that the Peruvian police confiscated during a series of raids in Lima and the border region with Ecuador on Wednesday. Cops arrested 18 people, including two who were identified as the ring leaders of a network that purchased weapons, mostly from the United States and Turkey, before reporting them lost and then selling them in the black market

Peruvian cops guard one of the 18 arms trafficking network members who were arrested Wednesday 

The weapons would then be reported 'lost' and 'introduced to the black market,' he added.

At least 17 guns were sold from a shop in the Lima district of Magdalena de Mar.

Bookkeeping records showed that five of the weapons made their way to Ecuador. 

The firearms eventually were sold to criminal gangs, including Los Lobos, the Ecuador-based gang that orchestrated the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio following a campaign rally on August 9, 2023 in Quito.

Peruvian cops search one of over a dozen homes and offices  Wednesday as part an investigation into an arms trafficking ring that supplied the weapons used in the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August 2023

One of the 18 people who were arrested in Peru in the investigation of an arms trafficking network that purchased weapons from the United States and Turkey and then reported them lost before selling them in the black market  

Peruvian authorities dismantled an arms trafficking ring that ended selling five guns that made their way to Ecuador, including one that was used in the attack that killed presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August 2023

The attack was planned by imprisoned gang leader Carlos Angulo with the assistance of three co-conspirators who hired an assassin squad of six Colombian nationals to execute Villavicencio.

The six gunmen were arrested at a home they used as a hideout and later murdered in prison on October 6, 2023.

Images broadcast on local television showed police on Wednesday seizing handguns, hunting and sports weapons, and long-range rifles, in additional to cell phones, computers and documents.

'Today's diligence is to demonstrate that this investigation has managed to prevent all these weapons from going on the market and then being distributed to the black market and taken to organized crime or via smuggling to Ecuador,' said commander Willy Gallardo, who oversees the police department's high complexity investigation division.