{"id":838,"date":"2026-09-11T20:23:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T13:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/?p=838"},"modified":"2026-09-11T20:23:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T13:23:43","slug":"he-paid-police-400-to-enter-this-city-then-violence-erupted-anyway-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/?p=838","title":{"rendered":"He Paid Police $400 to Enter This City \u2014 Then Violence Erupted Anyway – News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Frank van Dam had survived an ice hole in -52\u00b0C Siberia and a week in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Nothing prepared him for what he says he witnessed within hours of arriving in La Rinconada.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old Dutch filmmaker traveled to the remote Peruvian gold-mining town for a documentary about life at extreme altitude. What he says he found instead was a level of danger that made him question whether he\u2019d make it out unscathed.<\/p>\n

A City Built on Gold \u2014 and Fear<\/p>\n

La Rinconada sits more than three miles above sea level in the Andes, making it, by wide consensus, the highest permanent settlement on Earth. Roughly 50,000 people live there with no paved roads, no sewage system, and no running water. The entire economy revolves around informal gold mining beneath the mountains.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement has little real presence. Van Dam was warned the danger was serious enough that he paid four police officers $400 to escort him deeper into the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost every miner carries a gun,\u201d he explained in his documentary, \u201c3 Days in the World\u2019s Highest City Without Laws!\u201d According to van Dam, signs around mining territory warn that residents are permitted to shoot intruders, a claim he attributes to what he was told locally rather than to any official law he could verify.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long, he says, for that warning to feel real.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s One Person Dead\u201d<\/p>\n

Within hours of checking in, van Dam says his guide, Jefferson, alerted him that a robbery was unfolding just outside their hotel. According to van Dam\u2019s account, Jefferson told him one person was dead and another was being taken to the hospital, pointing to a body lying in the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t know exactly what happened,\u201d the guide reportedly said, \u201cbecause nobody wants to talk about the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Dam says the moment hit hardest because he\u2019d been filming a TikTok clip with a local resident just minutes earlier. \u201cTwo minutes ago, we were having fun with locals, and at that time a fatal incident occurred,\u201d he said. \u201cThis whole situation made me feel physically sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note: No police report, court record, or independent local news outlet has confirmed this specific incident. Peruvian regional outlets have, however, documented a broader and ongoing pattern of fatal shootings tied to disputes in La Rinconada in recent years, lending outside context to the danger van Dam describes \u2014 even though this particular event remains unverified beyond his own account.<\/p>\n

A Chilling Rule for Survival<\/p>\n

According to van Dam, his guide offered him blunt advice for what to do if he ever witnessed gun violence alone in the city: say nothing, see nothing. \u201cIf you see somebody shooting somebody, it\u2019s better to say, \u2018I can see,\u2019 and stay silent,\u201d Jefferson reportedly told him.<\/p>\n

The Air Itself Was a Threat<\/p>\n

Violence wasn\u2019t the only danger. At 16,700 feet, oxygen levels are roughly half what they are at sea level. Van Dam said his lips turned blue and his throat felt dry enough to taste blood \u2014 both consistent with symptoms of oxygen deprivation at extreme altitude. He said his blood oxygen saturation dropped to between 70 and 75% while he slept, a level that, if sustained, can strain vital organs.<\/p>\n

Despite the risks, van Dam says he and his crew pushed forward to finish filming. \u201cThis was one of the most risky recordings I\u2019ve ever done abroad,\u201d he said. \u201cIn this city, danger can appear in the smallest corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

What We Know<\/p>\n

La Rinconada, Peru, is widely regarded as the highest permanent city on Earth at roughly 5,100 meters (16,700 feet).
\nThe town lacks paved roads, running water, and sewage systems, and its economy is built on informal gold mining.
\nFatal shootings tied to mining disputes have been independently documented in La Rinconada in past years by Peruvian news outlets.
\nExtreme-travel filmmaker Frank van Dam visited the city for roughly 72 hours in March 2026 and hired armed police escorts.
\nVan Dam says he witnessed the aftermath of a fatal shooting near his hotel and that his guide warned him to stay silent if he ever saw violence alone.
\nVan Dam reported severe altitude symptoms, including blood oxygen saturation of 70\u201375% overnight.
\nNo independent confirmation of the specific shooting incident he describes has been located.<\/p>\n

Why This Matters<\/p>\n

Extreme-travel content has exploded on social media, drawing millions of viewers into places most people will never see \u2014 and rarely could survive. La Rinconada\u2019s documented history of violence, paired with the near-total absence of law enforcement, reflects a broader reality: in some of the world\u2019s most remote resource economies, the rule of law simply doesn\u2019t reach. That gap between spectacle and safety is exactly what makes stories like this resonate \u2014 and exactly why claims from a single, unverified vantage point deserve scrutiny even when they\u2019re compelling.<\/p>\n

For van Dam, the moment crystallized something he says he\u2019ll carry with him. \u201cThe same thing could have happened to me,\u201d he said, \u201cif I had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank van Dam had survived an ice hole in -52\u00b0C Siberia and a week in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Nothing prepared him for what he says he witnessed within hours of arriving in La Rinconada. The 22-year-old Dutch filmmaker traveled to the remote Peruvian gold-mining town for a documentary about life at extreme altitude. What he says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chua-phan-loai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions\/839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuyenhay360.com.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}