From Cartagena, where on May 10 they assassinated the prosecutor Marcelo Peccithe Colombian attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, and the director of the National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, gave new details of the investigations that allowed the capture of five people involved in the crime.
Around noon this Tuesday, the authorities offered a press conference, after the charges were filed and the security measure imposed on the five detainees on Friday in Medellín.
One of the first pieces of information Barbosa gave was that social networks were key to carrying out this murder. This taking into account that the constant publications on social networks that Pecci made with his partner – with whom he was on his honeymoon – were seen by the murderers.
The alleged assassins even stated that at times they were lost, but they found the prosecutor through their networks.
“There is a fundamental issue here: posting on social networks without responsibility can become a lethal weapon. The criminals stated that on many occasions they were lost, but that thanks to social networks they managed to locate prosecutor Pecci,” said Barbosa.
The prosecutor added that they reconstructed everything that happened in Cartagena as part of the murder of the Paraguayan judicial official.
Barbosa said that studies of 20 locations, 200 pieces of evidence, analysis of 120 hours of video, technical information of 40 antennas, the interception of 67 telephone lines, 27 interviews and the analysis of 10 social networks were carried out.
assassins
“The collection of material evidence such as videos from security cameras, cell phones and witness statements, allowed us to record the movements of these criminals in real time,” explained the attorney general.
The five presumed involved were captured on Friday of last week in Medellin. Later they were sent to Cartagena. There a judge is handling the case for the murder of Pecci while he was on a beach in Barú, in the capital of Bolívar.
We have information about the participation of a sixth person linked to the event and who would have fled to #Venezuela. A blue circular has just been issued #INTERPOL to find your location. We continue with the second phase of the operation to achieve total clarification. pic.twitter.com/OW2EjI2J9U
– General Jorge Luis Vargas Valencia (@DirectorPolicia) June 7, 2022
Four of the detainees accepted the charges brought against them by the Prosecutor’s Office. However, Francisco Luis Correa, identified as the determiner and financier of the crime, did not accept them.
In the hearings, in addition, it was known that for the crime of prosecutor Pecci they would have paid approximately 500,000 dollars.
Those involved are expected to be transferred to Bogotá, where they will remain in prison while the trial against them takes place. They will first be in the prosecutor’s bunker, while quotas are found in the capital’s prisons.
Investigations into the Pecci murder
Barbosa also pointed out that during more than 22 days of investigations they managed to solve the crime. And that each piece of evidence they found was ratified by those involved during the hearings that took place in recent days in Cartagena.
The authorities indicated that no rewards were paid to give results and they assure that there were investigative structures “so solid that the criminals, basically, when they arrive at the guarantee control hearing, what they do is accept the charges.”
What is coming, said Barbosa, is to identify the perpetrators of the crime, for which they will work with the Paraguayan authorities and “once and for all solve this case, whose tribute to prosecutor Pecci is that we solve it.”
The detainees “have the door open” for them to provide elements that allow them to find the whereabouts of the masterminds of the murder.
General Vargas, for his part, said that Pecci was going to be killed in Paraguay by a Brazilian gang.
Regarding the criminal gangs to which the assassins would be linked, the Prosecutor’s Office reported that details cannot yet be given, since it is key information to find those responsible. But this group “has the ability to kill anyone in the territory.”
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