© NA
Nothing at all. Almost 20 days following the death of 24 people due to adulterated cocaine, no one has been arrested for these homicides, it is not known who put the deadly opioid in the drug, where the identified substance – carfentanil – came from, nor who are the organization heads. Judge Mariano Grammatico Mazzari decided, in an 18-page resolution, that the case should go to federal court. Six people were charged, but the magistrate clarifies that they were the lower part of the organization – “vendors, security guards, satellites-, in which there were “superior links that participated in the elaboration, stretching, adulteration, fractionation and distribution of the highly harmful material”. In other words, none of the real culprits. In parallel, the federal judge Juan Manuel Culotta -which at the time was the name of Mauricio Macri for the electoral court of La Plata- prosecuted Joaquín Aquino, alias El Paisa, and other accomplices, but in the 36 pages of the resolution there is no mention of deaths. Prosecutor Paul Starc, another man linked to macrismo, also did not ask to be prosecuted for the deaths. And the reality is that there is not a single piece of evidence, not even an anonymous one, saying that there is a link that was tried to spread at the beginning to “clarify” the case of the deaths. In other words, in one file, only those who were in the bunkers, in the other, drug traffickers, but belonging to another organization.
Pichis
Judge Grammatica considers it proven that the adulterated cocaine had two milligrams of carfentanil in the “lines” that have two hundred milligrams. In other words, it is a minimal amount, but catastrophic, deadly.
The conclusion comes from the expert opinion that the Buenos Aires Attorney ordered to do and in which the Conicet intervened from a laboratory in Exact Sciences of the UBA. The samples with which this study was done were taken from two people who died. The magistrate says that the packets had very different compositions, but those that were in the bunkers in the Puerta 8 and El Gaucho neighborhoods had already been heat-sealed, so they were armed elsewhere, in what would be the upper echelon of the organization.
Since the judge points out that he is not at the top of the bandthe case should be investigated by federal justice, which -supposedly- is competent in the files in which large and sophisticated drug organizations are sought.
In a word, Judge Grammatica admits that they only have pichis of the band and that they did not find the place where the carfentanil was put, nor cutting instruments, nor the opioid itself used for stretching. Even so, he accuses them of the murders, but knowing that the key is in those who they cooked and they cut the drug.
the country
Judge Culotta’s brief is much longer. He dedicates many pages to testimonies from police officers who have been recounting since last August the adventures of El Paisa, his wife and a fairly large gang. The initial kick was given by the Attorney General’s Office that investigates drug trafficking (Procunar) headed by Diego Iglesias. Essentially, what they present to Judge Culotta and prosecutor Starc, in November, are the data on an organization that supplied drugs to four humble neighborhoods, Villa Loyola, Villa 18, Villa 9 de Julio and Villa Sarmiento. There is a long investigation in which there are also contacts with Villa Carlos Gardel and La Rana.
The procedures are mentioned in detail, with vehicles, corridors, clothing and photos of people coming out of the bunkers taking doses into the public light. The “little soldiers” and “satellites” are listed and even photographed, that is, young people stationed in different places to warn of the possible appearance of “police or strange people.” But at no time do they mention Puerta 8 or El Gaucho, the two humble neighborhoods where the deadly cocaine was sold.
The judge continues his story including procedures from January and the first days of February and recounts that only on February 3, and at the request of the substitute prosecutor Miguel Blanco García Ordás, nine raids were carried out in which El Paisa and all the band. Cocaine was seized in almost all homes, but in no case was carfentanil.
All the detainees said that the drug was planted on them, but they might not answer much regarding the evidence they were shown, photographs, testimonies and other elements. El Paisa said that he worked as a carpenter and had no way to prove it, so Culotta points out that this confirms that he lived by selling drugs.
In the 36 pages of the magistrate’s brief there is not a word regarding the adulterated cocaine or the deaths. All the defendants were prosecuted for drug dealing, none for homicide.
the old trick
There is a well-known police maneuver, from the Buenos Aires police and from many other security forces: when a high-profile case occurs and public opinion demands clarification, the archive of previous cases is reviewed to give something quick to the press, to simulate something similar to clarification, and decompress the pressure of the citizens.
From what both judges – Grammatica and Culotta – wrote, this seems to be the situation in the case of the 24 deaths. A gang that they had been following since August was raided and, to decompress, they linked it to adulterated cocaine. But the magistrates say there is no relationship: no link between the El Paisa drug gang and the deaths appeared in the documents. There is no witness, there is not even an anonymous one, and neither did carfentanil appear in the nine raids linked to that organization that, according to the judge, is commanded from prison by Max Ali Alegre, Alicho, and Blas Adrián Gómez, El Gordo.
Something might still appear in an expertise: that some trace of carfentanil appears in the drug seized from Paisa. For now, there is nothing.
lives
In favor of the Buenos Aires province and Minister Sergio Berni is the key fact that they immediately raided the bunkers at Puerta 8 and El Gaucho, where 1,800 more packets were found. Thus many lives were saved.
The other leading role was that of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health, led by Nicolás Kreplak, who quickly detected the antidote to treat people who arrived at hospitals in a very serious situation. That also saved lives, including people who were already on a ventilator.
voids
But at 20 days there is an unusual amount of unanswered questions:
*How is it that carfentanil came to two such humble neighborhoods? There is no history of the presence of this opioid in Argentina. Since it is synthetic, they mention that it is made clandestinely at a low price. But the truth is that there is no record of such manufacturing in the country. Therefore, the economic equation is not understood, it is not understood where it came from and why it appears in the adulteration.
*Who did the cutting, the stretching?
It is not known. The judge says that in the raids at Puerta 8 and El Gaucho no instruments were found to cut or any substance used to stretch the drug. All the packets contained cocaine, lactose, reducing sugars and there were no other more traditional substances, caffeine, dipyrone, bicarbonate, xylocaine. In other words, the origin of the adulterated drug, nothing.
*What is the band?
The research on El Paisa shows the inside of an organization: a head, a cook, distribution in different neighborhoods. Here, only those who sold and took care of the packets. The real culprits of the homicides do not appear.
* What police complicity did or does the gang that adulterated the drug have?
Neither of the two judges mentions anything at all regarding police complicity. There is not a word. A long history of uniformed millionaires who sheltered the gang of El Paisa, Alicho and El Gordo spread. There is no mention and in court they affirm that it is a journalistic novel without sources and without real names.
Residents of Puerta 8 and El Gaucho told journalists that a patrol car was going to cover the case of the deaths to collect a toll so that the bunkers would continue to function. There is no mention. There is a dramatic and incontrovertible fact: the bunker at Puerta 8 was raided on December 18 and was still working. No one noticed?
It is possible that, at this point, a part of public opinion has been left with the feeling that the dramatic case of the 24 deaths due to adulterated cocaine has been clarified. What is clear from the writings of the two judges is that nothing was clarified and most of the questions remain unanswered.
