Some of the larger protests were organized by Geovani Rafael Diez Villegas, the influential leader of the Union of Multimodal Transport Guilds of Peru (UGTRANM) who had previously collaborated in late 2021 with business executives and right-wing politicians to destabilize the Castillo government and whose power is recognized as rivaling the government's own Ministry of Transport and Communications. Diez Villegas demanded the removal of passenger restrictions on buses, pardons for transportation workers who were charged with crimes, and negotiations for forgiving debt owed by transportation businessmen to the government. He later organized a general strike aimed at paralysing transportation in Peru beginning on 4 April 2022 that resulted in product shortages, transportation stoppages, rioting, and violence.