From Rosario
Leonardo Airaldi, who was a collaborator of the former Minister of Agroindustry Luis Miguel Etchevehere, was arrested by the Gendarmerie in an operation against drug trafficking in Rosario. The rural leader was arrested on Sunday morning, along with three other people, during a procedure that the federal force carried out in Gorriti and Teniente Agnetta, in northwestern Rosario. Federal Justice spokesmen pointed out that Airaldi, who was also the head of the Rural Society of the town of Diamante in Entre Ríos, was inside a Volkswagen Amarok van in which there were drugs, firearms and cash. In turn, the sources specified that the Justice seeks to determine if Airaldi is linked to the gang of a drug trafficker sentenced to 13 years in prison. The narco who is linked to Airaldi is Daniel “Tavi” Celis, designated as the leader of a gang dedicated to the sale of drugs and convicted in 2019 of drug trafficking, partner of the former mayor of Cambiemos de Paraná Sergio Varisco, also convicted.
Airaldi’s relations with Macri’s Minister of Agriculture did not go unnoticed by Juan Grabois, pointing directly to the former minister, with whom he clashed some time ago over a field belonging to the Etchevehere family that the social leader occupied with the intention that the sister of the former president of the Rural Society gave it to his “Artigas” project. “Yesterday (on Sunday) they arrested Luis Miguel Etchevehere’s mule with a truck full of drugs. Two years ago, from the Artigas Project, we denounced the Cambiamite drug trafficking structure in Entre Ríos and the pact of power that protects it. Justice takes time but it comes We’ll be back,” Grabois warned on his Twitter account.
Strictly speaking, the information provided by the Gendarmerie itself is that four people were detained with an arsenal, drugs and cash (dollars and pesos) in the framework of an operation carried out by the Rosario Task Force. According to sources from the national force, the operation occurred at 3:20 am while uniformed officers were carrying out controls at the intersection of Gorriti and Teniente Agneta. There they stopped the march of a Volkswagen Amarok pick up in which two men and two women were traveling. As soon as they proceeded to search the truck, they detected two pistols (one Browning and one Glock) caliber 9 mm; 11 magazines and 196 ammunition (96 caliber 9 mm, 65 cal .40 and 35 cal .32).
In addition, the gendarmes also found 360 dollars, 151,960 pesos, a precision scale, medication in tablets and vials, six syringes with needles and one gram of cocaine. As a result of this procedure, the federal judge on duty ordered the arrest of the four involved, the seizure of the vehicle and all the elements found in the procedure.
In addition to Airaldi, Jimena Irupé Burne, Zulema Beatriz Troncoso and Lucas Alejandro Peralta were detained.
The Gendarmerie reported that in the control carried out on the van in which the detainees were traveling, the following was found: in the driver’s door panel, a Browning weapon without documentation and without a serial number, with ammunition in the chamber with a charger placed with 12 ammunition and a magazine with seven 9 mm caliber ammunition.
Meanwhile, in the gear lever pit, two chargers with 12 ammunition, 14 9mm caliber ammunition and a cell phone were found. While another cell phone was found under the passenger seat, a Glock, with its corresponding documentation, with two chargers without ammunition.
Subsequently, and by order of the federal justice system, raids were carried out on the homes of those arrested. A bulletproof vest was seized at Airaldi’s house.
As revealed by the journalistic investigation of the book “Narco Territory” by journalists Daniel Enz and José Amado, Airaldi was linked to the drug trafficking network commanded by Daniel “Tavi” Celis –in which high-ranking municipal officials from Paraná were also involved– and it was with whom Celis did business for the arrival of marijuana from Rosario.
For example, the book Territorio Narco tells the following: “Daniel Celis had long been related to Leonardo Airaldi, landowner and agricultural producer and former president of the Rural Society of the Diamante Department. A man who may lack something, but it will never be money. According to the indications that emerged in federal cases and in statements by the accused of the drug gang, his links with Tavi in drug trafficking businesses had been going on for at least a year; although unofficially others say that they had a single and failed company in common. In mid-2015, when the political agreement with Sergio Varisco was already sealed, Celis had run out of supplier and needed to bring marijuana, to cover the expenses of the electoral campaign. Airaldi, who had enough power to manage everything that happened in the Diamante Department, sent a ship loaded with drugs from the north that traveled through the entire Paraná Waterway without problems, and unloaded the merchandise on the Entre Ríos coast. Few remember the exact amount, but they speak of tons. Thousands of kilograms.”