The generational shift and the new criminal turn of Temucuicui that alerts authorities

Researchers detected that within the hermetic area located in Ercilla, a new generation of young people is emerging that engages in crime inspired by what happens in the capital, with crimes that previously did not occur and with urban artists as role models. This has generated differences with the older community members.

There were two events that caught the attention of those investigating crimes in the La Araucanía Region, specifically in the hermetic sector of Temucuicui.

It was 2023 when a health team arrived to provide care in response to a call from community members, assuming routine visits. But the assistance ended in the worst way. A group of young community members assaulted the workers, stealing their belongings, in what those who knew about the incident say was an unprecedented episode. And it didn't stop there.

In 2025, after another call, history repeated itself with the same assault and the same gang. “That didn’t happen before,” comment sources from the area, who state that although it is a conflictive perimeter, its inhabitants used to follow certain codes of loyalty.

This involves a new generation of young criminals driving a cultural change within this area located in the commune of Ercilla. Territorial reclamation and the defense of Mapuche symbols, say those who closely follow what happens there, have been set aside to make room for new criminal trends.

The assaults on health personnel, say the same sources, caused discomfort among the older Mapuche community members, because it ended up affecting the elderly in the community. But this new generation did not heed the complaints.

This is an unprecedented cultural change detected by investigators in that area. “There is a new generation of community inhabitants, they are young people between 18 and 22 years old, and they are contaminated by narco-culture and urban singers. They have lost their cultural identity, and the crime they are committing is practically the same as in Santiago,” says a source familiar with the area.

This has generated differences within the community, say those who know about this cultural change. In fact, these young people no longer obey the orders of the Mapuche authorities, the lonkos, as their ancestors did.

They are young people who neither work nor study and are dedicating their lives to crimes such as selling marijuana, carjackings, and ambushes in urban areas of communes like Victoria, Ercilla, and Collipulli. Always armed and recording themselves with cell phones to share among themselves.

They dress in baggy clothes, caps, jewelry, and record themselves driving expensive stolen cars in the style of the young criminal gangs operating in the Metropolitan Region. As if following a sort of manual, their young partners also participate in these exploits, helping to conceal the crimes.

Although on October 12, 2025, there was an attempt to burn a truck that would have been carried out by this same gang, it did not materialize. What they did do was set fire to a stolen car. But according to investigators, it was not an act representing political reclamation, as it used to be in the past.

The rift within the community has been reflected in the fact that, for example, when there have been arrests and formalization hearings, Mapuche companions no longer appear in court demanding their release.

The new generation is operating on its own. “The adults no longer have control,” say the same sources, who comment that not even the werkén Jorge Huenchullan

-arrested in May- could exercise authority over this new generation. “There is nothing of their cultural belonging in their actions,” they affirm.

A complex area

It is approximately seven kilometers of dirt road that separate Temucuicui from Route 5 South. This is precisely what makes entry difficult, because the road is bad for vehicle passage and ends up alerting any surprise police operation.

Inside the place, protected by the Indigenous Law, there are six lof that group different families. It is in one of those lof where Marcelo Catrillanca, the father of Camilo Catrillanca, lives.

These entry difficulties have given the place a reputation as impenetrable. The most serious incident occurred on January 7, 2021, when detective Luis Alberto Morales Balcázar died shot in a massive PDI operation.

Not only police have been victims of attacks. On March 15, 2022, a group of unknown individuals attacked the entourage of former Interior Minister Izkia Siches with gunfire.

From the Executive, they highlight that today the situation is more controlled and that operations have been carried out, which did not happen before. So far this year, three operations have taken place, two related to investigations into vehicle thefts and arson attacks, and one for the arrest of Huenchullan.

However, those participating in these procedures say that the May operations were scheduled in August 2025 and, so far, are similar numbers to those that occurred in 2023 and 2024. The difference is not due to a change in leadership in the Executive, they affirm. Only in 2025 was one carried out because there were no pending investigations.

But from the Executive, they defend that today it is calmer due to the new management. “As a government, we have highlighted and congratulated the Public Ministry along with the police for the various procedures they have developed and that have had successful results,” says the regional presidential delegate of La Araucanía, Francisco Ljubetic.

Prefect Inspector Juan Carlos Bustos, national head of Police Intelligence of the PDI, acknowledges that Temucuicui constitutes a zone of “high risk in terms of police entry and search procedures, due to the great resistance observed in previous procedures.” This, he says, “due to the use of large-caliber weapons” that occur there.

Despite everything, the regional prosecutor of La Araucanía, Roberto Garrido, states that there is no place in the country where authorities cannot enter: “Investigations in Temucuicui have remained active, and the procedures carried out recently demonstrate that there are no territories where the law ceases to apply.”

Finally, Garrido emphasizes that “it is important to distinguish those who participate in criminal activities from the vast majority of the sector's inhabitants, who have no connection to those crimes.”

Source:La Tercera