Drug prisoners ordered crimes that shocked Rosario, according to accusations by Argentine prosecutors

56

BUENOS AIRES (AP) — The Argentine justice system on Tuesday accused drug trafficking bosses who are imprisoned for having ordered the random murder of four residents of the city of Rosario in March, an episode that shocked the country, in retaliation for the tightening of measures of security in the prisons from where they continue to exercise their power.

Three Argentine prosecutors accused Alejandro Isaías N.—a highly dangerous prisoner in a Rosario prison—of being the intellectual author of the crimes of two taxi drivers chosen at random in order to “generate fear and public commotion” in that city located 300 kilometers from Buenos Aires and co-opted for years by drug trafficking, according to the accusatory opinion to which The Associated Press had access.

According to the document, Alejandro Isaías N, 28 years old, would have given the order to several adults who are his subordinates since his stay in Penitentiary Unit No. 11 of Piñero, a prison that is on the outskirts of Rosario and belongs to the Service Penitentiary of the province of Santa Fe.

It was a response to the modifications that the government of the Argentine president, Javier Milei, and the provincial government have implemented in recent months in the detention regimes of different prisons.

Alejandro Isaias N.’s accomplices — who are free except for a woman who is under house arrest — were in charge of the logistics of the crimes and minors carried out the shots in exchange for a payment of 200,000 pesos (225 dollars) to each one of them.

On the other hand, prosecutors accused Axel Uriel R., who is under house arrest, of having organized the murder of a bus driver and a gas station employee, as well as of having counted on several material authors to carry it out. One of them, a minor, would have received 400,000 pesos ($450) for the shooting death of the service station employee.

These last two crimes were ordered by “people linked to the criminal organization” led by drug trafficker Esteban Lindor A. —who were not identified in the ruling— from the Federal Penitentiary Complex No. 1 of Ezeiza, in the province of Buenos Aires , where he is held in the “high-profile” regime for dangerous prisoners, according to the opinion.

The indictment stated that the fear generated by these crimes, which occurred in a few days and caused the temporary cessation of different public services, “broke the public tranquility of an entire society.”

Milei has said he will redouble efforts to fight “narco-terrorists desperate to maintain power and impunity.”

“We are going to lock them up, isolate them, recover the streets,” said the president, a far-right who took power on December 10, in response to the murder of the gas station employee.

The drug gangs that have been operating in Rosario for about 15 years not only show their power through random and point-blank murders on public roads, but they have also increased their threats to the police forces, the Argentine Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich and authorities. provincial.