ONE of the first acts of interim President of Peru Jose Jeri on Saturday was to lead a series of raids on prisons holding gang leaders nationwide, the presidency said.

This came a day after the ousting of his deeply unpopular predecessor, Dina Boluarte, allegedly over her failure to curb rising crime. Ms Boluarte took power in a “constitutional coup” against elected Marxist president Pedro Castillo, who remains in jail.

Mr Jeri signalled a tough-on-crime message as he strode into the maximum-security Ancon I prison in Peru’s capital Lima to oversee cell-to-cell searches for contraband. 

The prison sweep by the right-wing leader turned up smuggled mobile phones, drugs and sharp objects used as weapons, authorities said.

In what looked like a campaign stunt ahead of next year’s scheduled presidential election, Mr Jeri’s visit to Ancon I coincided with raids at three other maximum security prisons across Peru.

“The evil that afflicts us at this moment is public insecurity,” Mr Jeri told lawmakers after his swearing-in Friday. “The main enemy is out on the streets. Criminal gangs, criminal organisations, they are our enemies today.”

The pre-dawn prison crackdown follows the lightning impeachment of Ms Boluarte, just hours after a shooting at a concert in Lima on Friday inflamed public outrage over a wave of gang violence washing over the South American nation.

Ms Boluarte’s tenure was also plagued by frequent protests and corruption scandals.