Julio César Arana del Águila, (April 12, 1864 – September 7, 1952) was a Peruvian entrepreneur and politician who committed crimes against humanity such as slavery, torture and genocide.

A major figure in the rubber industry in the upper Amazon basin, he is probably best known in the English-speaking world through Walter E. Hardenburg [de]'s 1909 articles in the British magazine Truth, accusing him of practices that amounted to a terroristic reign of slavery over the natives of the region.

Arana became a senator for the Department of Loreto from 1922 to 1926 and, as a result of the Salomon-Lozano Treaty, signed in Lima in 1927, Peru transferred his properties in the Putumayo to Colombia.

[16][11] That same year, The Galvez steamship, owned by Arana and captained by his brother Lizardo, travelled down the Caraparaná River and purchased six tons of rubber from Colombians that were settled there.

Some of the enslaved native groups used for labor in the Putumayo include: Huitoto, Andoque, Bora, Ocaina, Muinane, Resígaros, Yabuyanos, Nonuyas[20] and Yurias.

[26][27] Information later provided by Rómulo Paredes, a judge in Iquitos, stated that Arana arrived on the Putumayo steamship at La Chorrera and intermediated a meeting between the two groups of Colombians.

An agreement was made to pay Rafael Tobar and his companions 50,000 sols, and the Calderón hermano's were paid 14,000 for a settlement they built on the Igaraparana River.

[27] Paredes did not provide a date for this meeting, however Rafael Tobar, Cecilio Plata, Juan Cabrera, and Aquiléo Torres were arrested at La Chorrera in July of 1901 then taken to Iquitos as prisoners.

[17][d] Under Arana's enterprise, the indigenous peoples subjugated at these rubber stations delivered latex to La Chorrera, and this product would then be shipped to Iquitos.

[46] In February of 1904, a steamship belonging to Arana's company, named the Acreana, was seized by Brazilian authorities on the Upper Purus River while enroute to deliver supplies to rubber tappers on the Curanja tributary.

[53][35] Some of these Barbadian men protested to the British vice-consul in Manaus when they found out what the nature of their work in Peru entailed, however they were told they must fulfill the contracts they signed with Arana's company.

[73] This book, which was edited by the Peruvian consul-general to Manaus, Carlos Rey de Castro,[74] claimed that Robuchon was killed by indigenous cannibals.

[75] There were 20,000 copies of En el Putumayo y sus afluentes published at the expense of the Peruvian government,[76] and the book would later be used as a prospectus for a company formed by Arana in 1907.

[87][l] Benjamin Saldaña Rocca originally filed a criminal petition against 18 members of the J.C. Arana y Hermanos company, and urged the local courts to conduct an investigation.

Saldaña's petition led to a judicial case against Arana[91] however the local court in Iquitos declared a writ stating that they were "incompetent to act.

Perkins told Hardenburg about the atrocities he had seen at La Reserva: and the murder of David Serrano along with 27 of his companions, perpetrated by employees of Arana's company, in cooperation with Peruvian soldiers.

[n]The commander of Peruvian forces in the Putumayo in 1908, Juan Pollack, issued arrest warrants for the men who had participated in the 1908 attacks and many of those perpetrators were taken to La Chorrera in chains.

Arana, along with the Prefect of Loreto Carlos Zapata and the Peruvian consul-general to Manaus travelled together onboard the Cosmopolita steamship, to La Chorrera.

[113][114][115] Julio F. Muriedas, an ex-employee of Arana that provided a deposition to Saldaña, and stated that in February of 1908 he was working at an outpost belonging to Ildefonso Gonzalez on the Curary tributary of the Napo River.

[116][q] The deposition stated that Amadeo Burga, a Peruvian commissario, had pursued Muriedas throughout the Napo River with the intention of killing him because he was one of the first deponents that incriminated Arana and his syndicate with "awful crimes" in the Putumayo.

[121] A few Huitoto natives escaped from Arana’s estate and fled towards Pensamiento, where they protested against their treatment to the previous owner’s brother, who then brought that issue to Cazes.

[125] In 1910, English consul Roger Casement was sent to the Putumayo to investigate claims that Barbadians were perpetrating atrocities against natives while working for Arana's company.

[128][129] Previously in 1904, Casement wrote an investigative report on the Congo Free State, where atrocities were perpetrated against an enslaved indigenous work force which was dedicated to extracting rubber.

An arrest warrant was issued against Julio César Arana by judge Carlos A. Valcárcel on December 10, 1912 however the court of Iquitos nullified this order.

[143] The conflict was resolved shortly after the assassination of Peruvian president Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro, who was killed while inspecting a parade of soldiers that were going to be sent to the Putumayo River.

"[149] In 1964 the Colombian government paid the remaining sum of 160,000 dollars[138] from the Putumayo estate sale to Víctor Israel, who was an ally and long-term business partner of Arana.

[152][u] Luis founded an import-export company that was based in Loreto named Suramérica, due to his business obligations and his political life he frequently travelled between Iquitos and Lima.

Luis Arana Ramírez contracted polio when he was 8 years old and while he survived this infliction he was crippled and required a wheel chair to move around for the rest of his life.

The biographer of Julio Arana, Ovidio Lagos, wrote that Luis's decision may have been influenced by criticism he received from a popular local radio journalist.

[154] On September 27, 2002, the Canal 5 news station of Lima ran a program that depicted images of Luis Arana Ramirez and his mother "living in the most atrocious abandonment, in the most abject misery".