How can we ask someone to face organized crime for 80,000 pesos?
Carabineros trainees currently earn an average of 80,000 pesos monthly—deemed unacceptable by the minister—with proposed increases to 300,000 in year one and 800,000 in year two. Chile faces a security emergency with homicides up 20.4%, kidnappings up 56.4%, and extortion up 5,000% in prisons since 2014, driven by entrenched transnational criminal organizations.
- Carabineros trainees earn average of 80,000 pesos monthly; proposed increase to 300,000 in year one, 800,000 in year two
- Homicides up 20.4%, kidnappings up 56.4%, prison extortion up 5,000% since 2014
- 7,000+ arrests in 60 days of coordinated operations; 5.8 million contraband cigarettes seized worth 14 billion pesos
- Temucuicui entered by Carabineros for first time since 2023
Interior Minister Steinert unveiled a National Security Plan featuring salary increases for Carabineros trainees from 80,000 to 800,000 pesos and higher pay for officers in high-crime communes, amid rising organized crime and homicide rates.
Security Minister Trinidad Steinert stood before a national forum on security and laid out numbers that painted a portrait of a country under siege. Homicides had climbed 20.4 percent since 2021. Kidnappings were up 56.4 percent. Extortion—a crime that had barely registered a decade ago—had exploded by more than 5,000 percent inside the nation's prisons. "Today it is quite brutal," Steinert said of how these crimes were being committed. She was not speaking in abstractions. As a prosecutor in the southern Metropolitan Region and later as Regional Fiscal of Tarapacá in 2024, she had led investigations into the Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization that had taken root in Chile years ago. She had watched them communicate through WhatsApp status updates. She had seen them create shell companies to move money fast and buy Bitcoin. The state, she believed, had lost control of its own territory.
The security plan Steinert unveiled—she had already presented it to the Chamber of Deputies the week before and would take it to the Senate—rested on three pillars: recovering state control, improving operational effectiveness, and strengthening institutions. But the most immediate and concrete proposal was also the most pointed: a dramatic overhaul of how the nation paid its police.
Carabineros trainees, Steinert said, were receiving an average of 80,000 pesos per month during their training. She called the figure "unacceptable" and "absurd." How could the state ask young officers to confront organized crime on that wage? The government would raise it to 300,000 pesos in the first year and 800,000 in the second. Officers working in high-risk communes like Puente Alto would earn more. A quarterly performance bonus tied to effectiveness would follow. The message was unmistakable: the state had been unjust to its police, and money—not just words—was the remedy.
The plan went beyond salaries. Steinert announced 8.8 billion pesos to equip Carabineros with body cameras and scanning technology. A new National Criminal Analysis Center would serve as "the brain" of the anti-organized-crime strategy, cross-referencing information on people, financial flows, and license plates. The FBI would partner on complex cases. Municipal inspectors and private security guards would be mobilized as force multipliers. "Their collaboration and presence is vital," Steinert said.
The operational results were already visible. In sixty days of coordinated operations between police, customs, and tax authorities, more than 7,000 arrests had been made. Carabineros had entered Temucuicui, a zone that had been off-limits to state forces since 2023. Authorities had seized 5.8 million contraband cigarettes worth 14 billion pesos—money that had been flowing directly into criminal organizations' coffers. A criminal cell in Cartagena had been dismantled, with eight homicides attributed to its members.
Yet the scale of the challenge remained staggering. Armed robberies had increased 46.3 percent. Crimes involving knives and sharp weapons had jumped 140.2 percent. These were not isolated incidents but part of a transnational criminal ecosystem that had embedded itself across borders, routes, neighborhoods, prisons, and ports. The prisons themselves had become crime centers, places where extortion was now a primary business. Steinert's diagnosis was clear: Chile was in a security emergency, and the state had to reclaim what it had lost.
The salary increases represented a bet that institutional strength could be purchased, that officers given proper compensation and equipment would be more effective and more willing to take risks in dangerous neighborhoods. Whether the money would be enough—whether it would stem the tide of organized crime that had taken years to entrench—remained an open question. But Steinert was signaling that the old approach, the one that had left trainees earning poverty wages, was over.
Citas Notables
Chile is in a security emergency because criminal organizations have been entrenched in our country for several years.— Minister Trinidad Steinert
The state has been unjust to Carabineros and the Police of Investigations, but especially to Carabineros.— Minister Trinidad Steinert
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why focus so heavily on salaries when the real problem seems to be organized crime itself?
Because you can't ask someone to risk their life for 80,000 pesos a month. The crime is entrenched, yes, but the state's own institutions have been starved. Steinert is saying: we've been unfair to the people we're asking to do this work.
The numbers she cited—5,000 percent increase in prison extortion—those are staggering. How did it get that bad?
Prisons became ungoverned spaces. Criminal organizations took over from inside. It wasn't a sudden spike; it was years of neglect. Now extortion is a primary business model in those facilities.
She mentioned Tren de Aragua specifically. Is that the main threat?
It's one of several transnational groups operating here. What makes them dangerous is they're organized, they have resources, and they've been here long enough to build networks. She discovered they were using WhatsApp and shell companies—they're not unsophisticated.
The performance bonuses tied to effectiveness—does that risk creating perverse incentives?
That's a fair concern. But her logic is straightforward: if you want officers to stay in dangerous communes and do the work well, you have to pay them more when they do it. It's an attempt to align incentives.
What about the territorial control angle? Can the state actually recover what it's lost?
That's the real test. Temucuicui hadn't been entered since 2023. One successful operation doesn't mean the state has reclaimed the territory. But it's a signal that the state is willing to try, and that matters psychologically.
The FBI partnership—is that a sign the problem is beyond Chile's capacity?
Not necessarily. It's recognition that organized crime is transnational. You need intelligence sharing and expertise on complex financial crimes. The FBI has both. It's pragmatic, not an admission of defeat.