In just seven days the historical leader of the CAM Hector Llaitul and his son Ernesto Llaitul, alias “El Nano”, the main operational arm of the group, were arrested in two operations deployed by the PDI and which were processed in court by the Regional Prosecutor’s Offices of La Araucanía and Biobío. And although both procedures are for different acts and crimes, they respond to a coordination in the criminal investigations of the Public Ministry that made them share strategic information from both areas that for years have been the focus of arson and illegal attacks linked to rural violence. In short, the police say, a blow was dealt to the heart of the armed group that operates and claims sabotage actions once morest forestry companies that have even ended with seriously injured workers.
The most recent arrest, that of Llaitul’s closest son, Ernesto, It is part of a strategy that the criminal prosecution entity began to deploy in 2020. That year, for the first time, the arson attacks in La Araucanía and the province of Arauco were part of the speech of the national prosecutor Jorge Abbott himself, beginning a stage in which the events recorded in those areas ceased to be investigated individually, as isolated events, and a “supra team” of investigators was created. Added to this is the decision of the highest authority of the Public Ministry to sign Christian Wallsformer regional prosecutor who achieved several convictions for these crimes, as head of the Violent Crimes Unit of the National Prosecutor’s Office, who has articulated an interregional and focused work to work on the prosecution of criminal responsibilities following the actions that have a large part of that area under a state of constitutional exception.
In the 2021 account, in which Abbott took stock of the previous year, he announced the creation of a team made up of prosecutors from different regions to investigate the criminal groups behind the attacks. “I have instructed you that Within a month, present a National Work Plan, with a focus on the Southern Macrozone, and with four lines of action: the formation of interregional teams to address rural violence; urge for effective coordination with the police; the establishment of more expeditious links with the government; and the design of comprehensive support for the protection of victims of rural violence,” he said.
The authority added that “we are facing a worrying criminal phenomenon, in which there are high signs of coordination and increased firepower of the accused, who belong to gangs or highly organized criminal groups.” For some within the Public Ministry, this is a milestone in which the institution carried out joint work that has led to the investigative results of recent months.
Then, the regional prosecutors of La Araucanía, Robert Garridoand the Biobío, Marcela Cartagenabegan to design periodic meetings in which key information is shared that has served as support for the accusations of these days and that have in check one of the most important violent groups that operate in the Macrozone.
Although Ernesto Llaitul was arrested this Wednesday followingnoon in Carahue following an arrest warrant issued by the Los Angeles Guarantee Court and processed by prosecutor Marcela Cartagena, in the file for which his father was apprehended last week, appears mentioned on six occasions linked to events that are now in the sights of the Prosecutor’s Office. One of the episodes is related to an attack on the Quebrada de Nilladomuche estate, in the Los Sauces commune, which occurred on April 29, where he was photographed together with Pablo Marchant. Also, the police have managed to link his account as one that receives money in the name of the CAM leader.
The Public Ministry of Biobío will formalize it today, along with other operative members of the CAM, for a violent attack that occurred on September 9 last year at a Laja site. To support her request before the courts, the prosecutor Cartagena presented the evidence they have to date and that They report the planning of a sabotage action in the Río Deuco forestry, in which wood exploitation activities are carried out.
With the aim of concretizing the action, according to the reports available to the police, on September 7 Edward Cornejo, one of the detainees, contacted the owner of the La Isla cabin, in the commune of Laja, to lease her a property along with the other defendants Esteban Henríquez, Ricardo Delgado, Ernesto Llaitul and two other individuals who have not yet been arrested. . They paid $45,000 in cash for the first night, which was paid for by “El Nano”.
The next day, as has been established, the accused carried out observation and reconnaissance work on the site, in addition to checking escape routes. With the scenario already studied, on September 9 the action took place in which a truck was burned and forestry workers were seriously injured. One of the employees who slept in a company truck was intimidated with a weapon and forced to leave the machine, which was completely consumed by the flames caused -according to the Prosecutor’s Office- by the members of the CAM.
On September 10, the organization on the Werkén Noticias site claimed responsibility for the incident and, according to what was maintained, was executed by the ORT Pablo Marchant, to which Ernesto Llaitul and the other detainees belong. They will be charged with the crime of arson and attempted murder.
There are seven Organizations of Territorial Resistance (ORT) that operate with the CAM. These perform operational tasks, in the occupation and “sabotage” of the properties that are chosen as “targets” of the organization.
It is in this structure that Llaitul’s son plays a highly relevant role, since he is accused by the police as one of those in charge of coordinating each of these organizations.
One of these ORT is the so-called “Pablo Marchant”, which was baptized with this name following the young man died on July 9, 2021 in the middle of taking over a forestry property.
Before, this organization was called ORT Lafkenche Leftraru, which operated mainly in Traiguén, in La Araucanía, and also in some areas of the Province of Arauco, in Biobío.
Members of this faction – according to various police sources – are the other detainees, in addition to Ernesto Llaitul. The accused would have carried out “operational” tasks for the CAM, that is, in the possession of land and “sabotage”, as well as other attacks in the area that joins La Araucanía and Biobío.
The defendants are not strangers, neither to the police, nor less to the Public Ministry. This is the case, for example, of Esteban Henríquez Riquelme (23), who was arrested on February 7 of this year when he was caught carrying weapons and ammunition.
According to what the PDI recorded of his apprehension, Henríquez was arrested carrying, in a backpack, a 12-gauge shotgun, 32 cartridges, a flashlight, an earth orientation compass, a dark gray balaclava, a military-type jacket, camouflaged military-type pants, and a fisherman-type hat.
Although the Public Ministry requested his preventive detention, the Traiguén court left him with the precautionary measure of total house arrest, a measure that he never requested, according to the inspections that Carabineros had to carry out. But the Prosecutor’s Office did not insist much more either, given that Henríquez was being strictly monitored by the persecuting entity to arrest him for the attack he is accused of in Biobío.
Ricardo Delgado Reinao (32) is the other of the detainees who also records previous arrests. The first cause of his was in 2008, when he was arrested for simple damages along with other subjects in Cañete. After that, there was a reparation agreement that dismissed it with the payment of $50,000 each to the affected person.
The second cause is a complaint from the administrator of the Federico Santa María University in Hualpén. The complaint is for the crimes of threats, kidnapping, coercion, serious public disorder, violation of the Arms and Explosives Control Law, simple damage, theft and robbery with force in an uninhabited place, which occurred on November 6, 2012, when Delgado and a group of students took to the streets and began to make professors and students leave the university.
Delgado’s name also appears directly on Héctor Llaitul Carrillanca’s contact list, since, as the Prosecutor’s Office was able to detect, on January 1, 2020, the CAM leader transferred $10,000 to him and then, in November, $20,000.
The fourth of the detainees, Eduardo Cornejo Vidal (45), is the only one who does not have a previous record.
