Deep in the rainforest, north of the department of Pando, the vegetation seems to swallow the road. The landscape becomes denser and less guarded, in the community of Holanda, where now a narrow detour penetrates into the depths of the forest. It is the beginning of a communal road that winds along the borders of the Manuripi National Amazonian Wildlife Reserve, which shares a 67-kilometer diffuse border with Peru.
Few vehicles travel this road. Only motorcycles carry locals across the mountain regularly, many overloaded with up to four family members, including children. Some drivers travel from Peru, though rather than tourism or family visits, they are in the timber trafficking business.
“Yes, we have sold timber to Peruvians,” admits a community member involved in the illegal trade who declines to reveal his name. He does so without pride or fear, as if commenting on an everyday occurrence. When we ask if he goes into the community, the answer comes without hesitation: “They enter wherever they need to. They break through the forest”. They do so, he explained, on “triples”.
The triples are large three-axle trucks with heavy tire treads like those on a tractor. The modified body is an open wooden flatbed. The old Russian military vehicles, are acquired in Ecuador and brought into Peru, to be disassembled for scrap. Without license plates or authorization to operate, they are used to move timber from extraction points to intermediate zones for stockpiling.
Once a deal is made with the comunario, a community member, the triples traverse the thick mud and steep climbs of the jungle. Aboard are loggers and loaders carrying chainsaws, fuel, and so-called “castles”—a metal tool that joins two chainsaws so they can cut simultaneously, turning them into mobile sawmills that can carve a 40-meter log of freshly cut timber into marketable planks within hours. The loggers operate at night in small, efficient groups. They enter, cut, and gather the timber in places known as “rodeos,” before the loaders carry it onto the triples and return to Peru.
Coveted species include: mara, cedar, oak, almendrillo, and cumarú. Paradoxically, the last three are prohibited from extraction and are subject to the CITES convention.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) nominally ensures that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not constitute a threat to the survival of species. But in the forest there are no labels or certifications, and only men in a hurry to cut down and move timber.
Some even cross the boundaries of the Manuripi Reserve, where commercial logging is completely prohibited. Even so, they set up camps as engines roar and trees fall. The law is barely a whisper.
Since 2005, park rangers have carried out operations to evict camps and burn confiscated logs. The last one was recorded in 2023, according to a former official from the National Service of Protected Areas (SERNAP). He asks us to keep his name confidential as traffickers have put a price on his head.
What the traffickers risk is not minor. Transporting illegal timber along Bolivian roads should involve crossing at least one checkpoint. But along the entire road traveled by our team of journalists, only two police checkpoints were found. The closest one to the communities, in Empresiña, is barely more than a wooden hut with a hanging rope that is raised to give passage.
There are no forestry control points. There are no customs offices. And when there are no papers to prove the origin of the wood, cash does the job.
With bribes, officials look the other way. This all takes place in a landscape that seems designed for smuggling, where trees are worth more dead than alive.
THE PAPERS THAT LAUNDER ILLEGAL TIMBER
The journey took us over border roads between the two countries, which were barely scars of dry land in the thick jungle. On satellite maps these winding passages are invisible but they are well-known to smugglers. While traveling on these routes, we discovered connecting asphalt roads that cross the towns of Iberia, Alerta and Mavila. Parked on the dusty sidewalks and streets of these towns were the “triples“, the coppertone dust on their tires revealing the paths along which they travel.
After traveling in the triples, the timber is loaded onto a semi-trailer truck and moved by obtaining a falsified Forestry Transport Guide (GTF). When legal, this guide is an official document issued by the Peruvian government that “covers the movement of timber forest products and byproducts”.
But nothing in this illicit business is free. Obtaining one of these guides, which opens the barriers to smuggling, is not a simple or cheap job. So far, two major schemes have been exposed by the Provincial Corporate Prosecutor’s Office Specializing in Crimes of Corruption of Public Officials in Madre de Dios.
The first scheme, which was busted open in 2020, was called “Los Hostiles de la Amazonía” (The Hostiles of the Amazon). A network for extraction, stockpiling and transport of timber with inside help, whose organization is divided into three groups. Firstly, the commercializers are responsible for corrupting – via bribes and intimidation – officials from the regional government, the police, Peru’s National Superintendency of Customs and Tax Administration (SUNAT) and other officials. Secondly, the processors or launderers obtain fraudulent documents so that illegal timber can leave Madre de Dios. And thirdly, there are officials, who in exchange for money do not register documentation nor verify the volume or species of timber being transported, effectively permitting illegal trafficking of natural resources.
The investigation of this case was opened in different phases and on more than four occasions, and currently includes high-ranking officials from the Forestry and Wildlife Management office of Madre de Dios.
Another case, that of the “Villains of Tahuamanu”, was uncovered by authorities four years later. According to documents from the ongoing investigation, this criminal organization had perfected the mechanism implemented by The Hostiles of the Amazon, using forest management documents – including transport guides, log lists, measurement sheets, sender’s delivery guides, and invoices – converted into passports for impunity.
The criminal organization was structured around a central group, responsible for acquiring, stockpiling, and processing timber products of illicit origin. That same group was also in charge of recruiting intermediaries— including poor people whose identities are used in forest transport guides where they appear as alleged buyers and/or sellers to evade the payment of taxes that timber buyers should assume. Also involved are the facilitators, concessionaires authorized to extract timber products, who provide public documents to the gang leaders; and public officials, whose function is the same as with “Los Hostiles de la Amazonía”. The last group are the final buyers of the illegally extracted timber.
Illegal loggers are vaguely mentioned in the file—the group responsible for cutting timber in Bolivia and transporting it to Peru. According to the descriptions, these individuals may be financed by the criminal organization’s leaders to extract timber from Bolivian forests, or they may operate independently while selling to the central organization. These are people who live in Alegría, Mavila, Alerta, and San Lorenzo.
Both groups of timber traffickers operated in Madre de Dios with the complicity of public officials who were stationed to guard the forest, but ended up ”laundering” illegally cut logs that, owing to falsified documents, became legal timber that was sold and labeled with signature and seal.
According to the investigation file we accessed, this is how it works: permits are bought from legitimate concessions that still have remaining authorized extraction volumes on their quotas. Then, with the complicity of paid-off forestry technicians, every detail is filled in as if describing real trees, including the scientific name, quantity, volume, point of origin.
All supposedly in order, on paper. But the wood that the “triples” carry does not come from these authorized forests. It comes from further inland, from areas where the forest is supposedly protected.
HOW THE TIMBER TRAVELS
The investigation file of Los Villanos del Tahuamanu also reveals that part of the Bolivian wood, generally from the most common species (capinuri, tornillo, cachimbo, bolaina, copaiba, algarrobo, capirona, ana caspi, lupuna, cumala, mashonaste, manchinga, ishpingo) reaches Peruvian markets in Cusco, Puno, and Amancay. But the most valuable species, such as mara, cedar and oak, travel in containers to markets as far away as China, the United States, Vietnam, France, the Dominican Republic, Denmark, Belgium and New Zealand.
Some of the companies that appear in this file for buying illegally sourced timber and exporting it are:
Cumarú Maderas SAC, for its link to the investigation, exports of the timber are detailed in 2022, but in 2024 exported to China, France, Czech Republic; Arbe Lumber SAC, although this company was automatically deregistered by the National Superintendence of Customs and Tax Administration of Peru (SUNAT) for lack of activity or non-compliance with tax obligations, there are export traces that reach up to US$ 1,728,157. This is the same situation for Mafer Export Lumber SAC, whose export traces reveal a total of 6 shipments sent to China, the United States, and the Dominican Republic. Finally, the company Mikarh SAC shows traces of exports to France, China and Vietnam that exceed US$ 4,400,000. This company was fined for purchasing forest products of illegal origin.
Amazon Underworld has sought to contact the legal representatives of Cumarú Maderas SAC, Arbe Lumber SAC and Mafer Export Lumber SAC, but has received no response.
The final recipients of the timber are not often charged in investigations due to the use of “good faith buyers”, a principle which allows companies to argue that by acquiring the timber and verifying that it has documentation proving its legal origin, they trust the seller. However, an undercover investigation by Global Witness revealed that in reality they do know or suspect that it is illegally harvested timber.
According to the Peru Forest Platform website, between January and August 2024, timber shipments totaled nearly USD 55 million. More than half was fine sawn lumber.
These fine woods, sought-after for their color, hardness and luster, are the various species of cedar (Cedrela spp.) or the now increasingly sought-after shihuahuaco (Dipteryx micrantha) – or one of its four species known in Bolivia as cumarú or almendrillo – are included in CITES Appendix II. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List lists Cedrela odorata, one of the most traded species, as “Vulnerable” and the shihuahuaco as “Critically Endangered”, the most serious category of threat.
“After mahogany (mara), which hardly exists anymore, these species are the most sought-after,” said forestry auditor Ricardo Estrada. “What I wonder is: how do they ‘launder’ the CITES permits? They are difficult papers to get. They require inspection, signature, and photographs. And, even then, they get out”.
Documents from Proética, the Peruvian chapter of Transparency International, point in a similar direction. Since 2005, it has compiled information on ”Forestry Management Plans (FMP) approved with false or non-existent information on trees by forestry authorities”. The data available on the Maderalegal.pe website reveals several cases of trees that never existed, inflated volumes, areas declared productive where there is nothing more than bare land. One forestry concession is even registered as a mining operation.
CONFRONTING TRAFFICKERS
Sitting in the shade of a tree on the outskirts of Puerto Maldonado, Usmilda Rosambite holds a stack of papers and newspapers with both hands. They are testimony to a conviction that never came, to an impunity that has become the shadow haunting these corners of the Peruvian Amazon. The evidence she keeps tells how timber traffickers gunned down her husband, Lieutenant Governor Julio García Agapito, on February 26, 2008.
The news stories of the crime lie within the papers in her hands, but Usmilda doesn’t look at them. She has told the story hundreds of times, like an echo repeated in her memory, as she seeks justice for her husband and reparations for her family. Only rarely does she glance at those paper fragments, reviewing figures.
She tells us that they intercepted the timber shipment, that they called the Lieutenant Governor to give it greater legitimacy, and while they were preparing the seizure report, the owner of that timber shipment arrived, but he provided no documentation or permits.
“He bursts into the office, threatens the forestry technicians and ends up killing my husband. He fired 11 shots, 8 of which hit my husband’s body… And they killed him”
— usmilda Rosambite
In Alerta, the small town crossed by the winding Inter-Oceanic Highway where the events took place, the crime did not shake everyone. Some voices celebrated the murder of Usmilda’s crusading husband, who had declared a full-frontal war against timber smuggling.
“Well done that they killed him, he didn’t let them work,” some said without a shadow of a doubt.
“But how did they work? Illegally. People don’t realize that,” said Usmilda, her eyes fixed on the ground and her voice trembling.
In that operation, 1,331 board feet of mahogany or mara (Swietenia macrophylla) from Bolivia, a species protected under Appendix II of the CITES Convention since 2002, were seized.
Seventeen years have passed, and according to Usmilda, little has changed. Timber smuggling continues, fueled by criminal groups that keep operating in the shadows of the Amazon rainforest, invisible but present in this border zone between Bolivia and Peru, which appears stuck in a cycle of violence and impunity.
DIFFERENT TIMES, SAME IMPUNITY
Between 2020 and 2025, at least six operations carried out in Bolivian territory, with participation from the Authority for Supervision and Social Control of Forests and Land (ABT), the army, and park rangers from the Manuripi Reserve, showed clear signs: timber was crossing the border.
However, the Pando Departmental Prosecutor’s Office only pursued formal charges in a single case. In 2021, four Peruvians were caught felling Palo María trees—logs measuring 14, 15, and even 17 meters—within the protected area. Only two received sentences: two years in prison. They were released in 2022. Since then, no one has been prosecuted for these crimes.
On the Peruvian side, a 2022 operation by Madre de Dios’ Forestry and Wildlife Management office left a lasting impression. In Shiringayoc, on the Bolivian border, authorities discovered a massive shipment of 60,000 board feet of timber – more than half of it CITES-protected cedar – enough wood to cover 5,000 square meters of flooring. “It was a variety that no longer exists in Peru,” said one of the officials involved in the seizure.
For security reasons, one of our sources preferred anonymity. “It was imperative to finish before nightfall in that red zone, known not only for timber trafficking, but also for the movement of drugs,” the source added.
In February 2025, the conflict took the form of persecution. An anonymous tip led Bolivian authorities to the community of Alta Gracia, municipality of Filadelfia, on the banks of the Manuripi river. There, a Peruvian camp had set up operations with a triple truck already loaded with cedar and oak planks. Upon discovery, the traffickers fled. Androcles Puerta, director of the ABT in Pando, led the operation along with two soldiers and other officials. The warning to the community was clear: “if the triple truck was not handed over, they would become accomplices,” Puerta said.
The journey of the seized truck to Cobija was an odyssey. In the community of Espiritu, the traffickers, accompanied by two armed hitmen from the same group, blocked the road along with some 20 people.
“The only option to avoid a tragedy was to shout that the truck had no brakes. Then, in Soberanía, they tried a new attack. This time, the hitmen hid in the bush. A child warned us with a sign that we were going to die”.
— Androcles Puerta.
At the Empresiña checkpoint, it was the Bolivian police themselves who wanted to arrest the team for not carrying visible credentials. Puerta interpreted this as a cover-up: the Peruvians had passed through without being registered.
The pressure did not relent. The traffickers insisted on their attempt to recover the triple. “I had to tell them that it was better for them to retreat, because the news of the illegal operation with bullets had already reached the Military High Command and that elite groups were arriving at all borders,” said Puerta. That was the only way they managed to put an end to the persecution.
“It is not possible that in the communities people act as accomplices of outsiders, that the police instead of collaborating with the institutions, cooperate with illegality,” he said. For him, military support is crucial, but it is insufficient to guard the entire border. “We cannot carry arms and our work is risky,” he concluded.
Three months later, on May 14, 2025, a new operation in Bolpebra, a few meters from the Peruvian border, confirmed that nothing had changed. The ABT seized nearly 15,000 board feet of timber, two motorcycles and a castle. They also found an illegal stockpiling center. More castles. More evasion. No one was arrested. The offenders escaped without a trace.
In both cases, all that remained were the objects: the triples, the castles, the motorcycles. There were mute witnesses to the failed attempt to once again traffic valuable timber from the Bolivian forests. Those shipments did not reach their destination, but that did not stop impunity.
Today, other triples -identical, intact- rest in plain sight in garages in Mavila and Alerta, on the Peruvian side. Nobody touches them. But they are there, ready for the next trip, waiting to enter to cut down and exploit the Bolivian Amazon rainforest.
WHERE DO CERTIFIED TREES COME FROM?
At the roadside Forestry Control Post ”El Triunfo”, at the entrance to Puerto Maldonado, three officials from the Regional Forestry and Wildlife Management of Madre de Dios (GERFOR) are in charge of controlling vehicles transporting timber. While we talk with the post manager, outside, truck drivers wait for the officers with their engines running, vibrating with a low roar. The sun beats down relentlessly.
Inside, in a corner of the office, two young officials move their fingers rapidly over the keys of their calculators and with the other hand point to the numbers of the documents under review. The third official, Francis Antelo Chalco, takes the role of host.
“The guidebook is everything,” he tells us. “If everything matches on paper,” he explains, “we have no way of knowing if the wood came from a legal concession or from a Bolivian national park”.
“How can I, at the checkpoint, know that a load is illegal if everything is in accordance with the guide: receipts, invoices, and the verified product coincides with what is declared? From here we cannot verify where the declared timber was harvested, unless there is a complaint”. The official admits that, thanks to previous complaints, vehicles with illegal shipments have been intercepted.
In February of this year alone, El Triunfo registered the seizure of 490 truckloads of timber. There are almost half a thousand opportunities for a tree illegally harvested in Bolivia to mix with trees legally extracted in Peruvian concessions, according to officials.
CLANDESTINE ROUTES
A former forestry agent in Madre de Dios, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed to us that illegality is given cover by nightfall, or with bribes at Peruvian checkpoints. However, he considers that the great weakness is on the Bolivian side where there is almost a total lack of forestry control posts.
One of the routes through which the timber is moved connects San Lorenzo (Peru) with the Bolivian town of Extrema, passing through the Inter-Oceanic Highway. The other connects Shiringayoc (Peru) with Soberanía (Bolivia). Both are well known. In the first, the National Customs of Bolivia ordered for the creation of the Extreme Border Customs Administration in 2022, under Circular 179/2022. But these offices never came into operation.
In Shiringayoc, the police post seems more like a promise than a barrier: two young men, with worn-out uniforms and sunkissed faces, watch from a bench. One of them greets us with an elusive look, denying that illegal products, such as timber, pass through this route. His companion, more reserved, watches silently from the shade of a tin roof.
—“The controls are during the day”, says the policeman, as he nervously adjusts his cap. “At night it’s a bit dangerous”.
We insist: “Dangerous why?”
—“Because of the crops. The coca,” he answers, almost in a whisper. “You can’t risk it. You’d better come tomorrow, and talk to the boss”.
According to the information shared by the former agent, there are indeed coca crops identified by intelligence agents in undercover operations in Shiringayoc, and although a direct link between drug trafficking and illegal timber extraction has not been demonstrated, they share the route. The routes for transporting timber between Bolivia and Peru are the same ones used by drug traffickers to transport their goods into Bolivia and on to Brazil. The Inter-Oceanic Highway has become a red zone that becomes particularly dangerous at night when it is controlled by these groups.
Manuel Calloquispe, a Peruvian journalist who specializes in regional politics and socio-environmental conflicts, says that: “(…) these last three years, in the border of Peru and Bolivia, coca plantations have appeared and laboratories for the production of cocaine paste have also been found, even a clandestine airport located on the Bolivian border”.
“That is to say, the illegal economy is making a huge confrontation to the sustainable economy that we still have in Madre de Dios,” Calloquispe went on to say.
In an interview with the director of the ABT of Pando, Androcles Puerta, he assures that in that department there are at least 10 irregular border crossings to Peru, which are known as “trochas”, but in 2018, the Bolivian Police identified at least 25 illegal border crossings in the department of Pando.
Juan Carlos Grifa, president of the Departmental Federation of Castañeros de Madre de Dios (FEPROCAMD) and former mayor of the district of Tahuaman, does not beat around the bush.
“They do not want to formalize. And then, what do the Peruvian or Bolivian citizen do on the border? To survive, he does business with what he has in his forest. He doesn’t care if it is formal or informal. The thing is that he has his money to be able to survive…”
Grifa’s statement does not cast blame in anger, but with fatalistic resignation. His voice speaks of two states that do not arrive on time, or never arrive at all.
