THE MOUNTAIN LORDS Los Señores de la Montaña

A gang of bandits called the Mountain Lords lived in the town of Cajamarca, in the Andes Mountains and preyed on unsuspecting travelers in the major cities of Peru.

In Spanish they called themselves Los Señores de la Montaña.

LSM was established by the twin brothers Estaban and Gonzalo Perez in 1971. They were both 27 years old.

They chose to hide out in Cajamarca and for all intentions they appeared to live a middle-class life though they were very wealthy. It was assumed that they made their riches from their trucking company called E and G Trucking and ran forty tractor trailers. However, they used the company as a front for their true money maker which was to hold up and steal from people in the major cities. They and their gang of forty-three men remained unknown to the authorities as no victim was able to identify their attacker as they were always masked.

In 2002 both brothers died in a gunfight with another gang, and LSM came under the leadership of Esteban's son Mateo who was 31 years old.

Mateo had been well educated and although he had participated in the gang's forays and was just as ruthless as his father and uncle, he knew that with the advent of modern forensics it was only a matter of time until they were discovered and that they must change the way that they operated.

The families all lived contented lives. The men engaged in their illegal forays and earned large commissions from their spoils, while their wives either stayed home as housewives, or went to work in various positions from teachers in the local schools, to bank employees, to office or retail shop workers. Those who chose to work kept their incomes and spent them on lavish desires.

Their children attended schools and on the bidding of Mateo one of the subjects that they had to learn was languages to speak English and French and to do so fluently, for Mateo knew that a good education would prove invaluable in society, but even more so should they agree to become gang members when they graduated.

Everyone had outside interests that gave them joy whether it was from playing golf, fishing, shopping, games of cards and the like, visiting the casinos, and all in all they led what anyone delving into their habits would feel were normal middle-class lives.

One other venture that Mateo's father and uncle had set up was a jewelry store in downtown Cajamarca where they sold their stolen gems as opposed to using a fence.

Eight of the wives operated the store in two shifts from Monday to Wednesday and from Thursday to Sunday and rotated every two weeks. The store was open 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. seven days a week and did very well as they sold their wares at thirty percent less than competing stores.

Everyone took one-month long vacations and so they were always relaxed. In addition, Mateo and his father and uncle before him treated all their people with respect and this resulted in the people remaining loyal and beholden to them. In all the years of operation there had not been one defection.

In the culture that most crime families might operate this one was a shining example.