The phrase "on the margins" can refer to a place whose surrounding areas are on the edge, indicate that someone or something is not involved in an issue, and can even be used as a synonym for marginalization or exclusion.
Since June 1, it has also been the name of a new digital media outlet that investigates urban, rural and transnational crime in Peru and Latin America.
“All the topics we cover have something to do with the margins in different contexts,” Pamela Huerta Bustamante, investigative journalist and co-founder of Al Margen, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “Social margins—security issues, violence—margins due to the borders we work within, which we often see as distant, and also topics that are marginalized from coverage and the public agenda because there isn’t enough time, resources or interest.”
To date, they have published reports on coca cultivation and drug processing in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, the trafficking of river turtle eggs from Bolivia to Peru, and timber trafficking in the Bolivian rainforest. These investigations were supported by the award-winning cross-border journalism project Amazon Underworld.
Huerta said Al Margen seeks to break with the tradition of treating issues related to crime from a punitive perspective.
"We want to talk about crime, but not with the usual basic crime article that tells us about cops and robbers, but rather to talk about crime as what it is: a social phenomenon," the journalist said.
Al Margen is a small team of just three people: Huerta, content manager Alonso Marín Jiménez, and data analyst José Luis Huacles Unocc. All three were part of the data journalism team at La República, one of Peru's largest newspapers. Now all three are fully dedicated to this endeavor.
As it grows, the team said it wants to publish investigations weekly and to have a significant component not only of on-the-ground reporting but also data analysis.
“There's a need for investigative journalists in Peru to create their own spaces to talk about specific topics, like our case with crime. Spaces are often limited in traditional journalism,” Huacles Unocc told LJR. “These ventures are necessary because there aren’t many places to do investigative journalism, let alone data journalism.”
When you visit the Al Margen website, you'll find several sections such as security, environmental crimes, unreported crime, special features, and opinion pieces. One of the reports published in the security section, co-authored by Huerta, focuses on the expansion of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), a Brazilian criminal organization with tentacles in the Peruvian Amazon region.
Pamela Huerta Bustamante, investigative journalist and co-founder of Al Margen. (Photo: Al Margen)
Huerta traveled to places like the Pucallpa prison and remote communities in the Abujao river basin, where the CV has established a drug trafficking network involving youth, Indigenous communities, and women.
The story is accompanied by photographs and maps showing the journalist's journey and the locations taken over by the criminal organization.
This work was carried out in partnership with Amazon Underworld, a cross-border investigative journalism project that, since 2022, has been dedicated to mapping the presence of criminal networks in the Amazon, measuring their impact, and highlighting the human stories behind the region's crime.
Al Margen is the youngest media outlet that is part of Amazon Underworld, which also includes Armando.Info from Venezuela, InfoAmazonía from Brazil, La Barra Espaciadora from Ecuador, La Liga Contra el Silencio from Colombia, and Red Ambiental de Información (RAI) from Bolivia.
“We decided to work with Al Margen because we had already worked with the people on their team, who are superb journalists and investigators and will bring a lot of positive things to Amazonian and investigative journalism,” Bram Ebus, co-founder of Amazon Underworld, told LJR. “Their experience in the territories and their skill in working with data make Al Margen a great fit for our partnership.”
Ebus said Al Margen is a media outlet that will make sense of and provide a broad audience with an account of the drivers, networks and exchanges involved in environmental crimes and illicit economies within the rainforest.
Practicing journalism in Latin America has become a high-risk profession. According to Reporters Without Borders, between January and July 2025, at least thirteen journalists were murdered in the region simply for practicing their profession and providing information of public interest to the populations of their respective countries.
At Al Margen, José Luis Huacles Unocc serves as data analyst and Alonso Marín Jiménez as content manager. (Photos: Al Margen)
Two of these murders happened in Peru.
The team at Al Margen is aware of the risks but maintains high standards in its security protocols.
“When you're in the field for various reasons, you're never completely safe,” Huerta said. “It's impossible to guarantee 100% safety, but we do take this issue into account and try to take every precaution possible.”
Satellite monitoring is part of the plan. While Huerta reports in remote areas of the city, Marín Jiménez is in Lima monitoring her location. This entails additional investigative costs.
“Security is a component of our budgets and proposals,” Huerta said. “But it's important that this be validated by the organizations we contact so they can fund these types of investigation.”
Talks to create Al Margen began in the middle of last year when Huerta contacted Marín Jiménez.
“This all started when Pamela wrote me out of the blue after a long period not talking and said, ‘Hey, I have an idea,’” Marín Jiménez said. “José Luis joined us along the way, and after many difficulties of all kinds—administrative and personal—we’ve reached this point.”
To cover administrative expenses such as business creation, branding, etc., the journalists have had to invest money out of their own pockets.
Additionally, they have received advice from SembraMedia, an organization that has been working for a decade to strengthen the sustainability of independent digital media in Latin America.
Despite the cuts in foreign aid that have affected Latin American journalism in recent months, Marín Jiménez said that Al Margen's business model will focus on raising money through alliances, grants, scholarships and consultancies.. They will also seek to implement a request for donations from their audience in the future.
“To do that, we have to create a community, and we obviously want to iron out all the mistakes we make along the way,” Marín Jiménez said. “Because we believe the journalism we do is important, relevant and that we're reporting our stories with great care, responsibility and transparency.”
