Viña del Mar: the Chilean tourist city that has become a focus of assaults and homicides

The unmissable postcards of the flower clock, the beaches and the long-awaited musical festival that, every year, takes Viña del Mar -the so-called garden city-, appear like a postcard removed from the Chilean tourist city on these days.

The local news shows headlines about an attempted cell phone robbery that ended with the victim dead from a stabbing, in the heart of the city, while he was walking with his partner and his two-year-old son, when it was barely 9 at night.

The criminal fled and keeps the restaurant owners in the sector on alert, one of the busiest commercial areas where they claim that crime has skyrocketed in recent years.

“We have installed cameras, we have more than 62 pointing outwards, towards the street, towards conflict points. We also have panic bells, with a protocol for what to do in case one sounds. We have installed lights with motion sensors for the most critical areas, and we leave the lights of our premises on throughout the night to increase the luminosity of our neighborhood,” Javier Ignacio Álvarez Gallardo, president of the Gastronomic and Cultural Association, tells EL TIEMPO. Poniente neighborhood of Viña del Mar.

We have installed cameras, we have more than 62 pointing outwards, towards the street, towards conflict points

Although these measures have not been enough to stop the increase in crime in the most tourist areas where even, In broad daylight, assaults are recorded.

“A guy runs by, pounces on me, hits me and scratches my entire chest to tear off my necklace. I screamed, but no one said anything, no one turned to look, as if it were something normal that no longer surprises them,” says Natalia Espejo, a Colombian tourist who was visiting Viña del Mar for the first time, and ended up with an unpleasant anecdote of journey

Espejo tells EL TIEMPO that What surprised her most was the absence of police in the city and the number of tourists who face this panorama of insecurity. “This same week they robbed some foreigners, who were on the beach, of their bags with their passports and they had to borrow money to return to Santiago and go to the consulate,” he points out.

This is how criminals operate in Viña del Mar

Although The increase in insecurity in Viña del Mar has been progressive during the last decade, For experts, phenomena such as the social outbreak of 2019 and The pandemic marked a before and after in the way we operate of criminals and
the level of response of the authorities.

“There was an increase and lack of control in immigration. We have many criminals who are immigrants, many new crimes imported to Chile, like the motochorros, to which we were accustomed, something that later evolved into the autochorros,” says Álvarez, who highlights that Chilean criminals operate by entering premises and houses, during the night, after identifying them through a network of informants.

To this panorama the operation of transnational gangs such as the Tren de Aragua is added whose members, apart from robberies with intimidation, commit crimes such as hitmen, extortion and kidnapping.

“These gangs move from one place to another and, clearly, Viña del Mar is a tourist city. Let us remember that a few days ago we had the Song Festival where there was a large police deployment to provide security to all the tourists who came to our region. It is a phenomenon that is moving not only in Chile, but in South America,” Christian Jabbar, former investigative police detective, warns EL TIEMPO.

Alert for homicide figures

At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor's Office presented the National Report on Victims of Completed Homicides in Chile, where it is evident that one of the areas where this phenomenon has grown the most, compared to previous years, is the so-called “Garden City” where its rate increased by 157.9 percent, if compared to the first half of 2022, going from 1.9 to 4.9 victims per 100,000 inhabitants.

However, local authorities assure that measures are being taken to confront this phenomenon and They are betting on better equipping the Viñamarina police, through the incorporation of motorcycles all terrain to reinforce preventive patrolling in the areas most affected by crime.

“Any type of investment in security will add to prevention, to having an active presence so that people can perceive us in the environment and contribute to reducing this perception of insecurity,” says Colonel Leonardo Cárdenas, Prefect of Carabineros of Viña del Mar.

A perception of insecurity that leads the national ranking among the inhabitants of the coastal city, with a rate that reaches 69.9% of victimization against different crimes, according to the survey by the studies department of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism of Chile.

This is a discouraging panorama for foreign travelers who arrive in the city located about 130 kilometers from the capital that, although it has also registered an increase in crime, has a greater deployment of police in critical areas, when compared to Viña. from sea.

“We were left with the impression that it is not a tourist place, I would not recommend it. We decided to stay at the hotel and we left the next day, super early, to Santiago and there we felt safe again,” concludes Espejo.

Top 5 of the most violent areas in Chile*

*According to the number of victims of homicides committed during the first half of 2023

ANDREA AGUILAR CÓRDOBA – FOR TIME – SANTIAGO DE CHILE