At 8:45 p.m. last Sunday, a series of calls to 911 set off the alarms. A group made up of about 40 young people was trying to commit “piranha” robberies at that time in the city of Córdoba. It all happened in the area known as El Dante, at the southeast end of Sarmiento Park.
The green space is located in the expanded downtown area of the Capital. Due to its centrality, it is also monitored 24 hours a day by the Police. The cameras immediately confirmed the neighborhood reports.
The first mobiles arrived on the site almost instantly. But that was only the beginning of an operation that was to culminate with three people of legal age and 22 adolescents and even children detained.
Upon arrival, the uniformed men were repelled with stones and attacks of different types, according to statements from the Police Headquarters. However, the operation managed to disperse the group.
“In the vicinity of the El Bosque bar, located in the park, two arrests were made for robbery. A gang of people tried to take the detainees away from us. There was a scuffle that included stones and attacks of different types against the police personnel and the people who were in the place”, senior police sources confided to this newspaper.
With two detainees on a mobile, the forces spread towards the Plaza España area, heading towards the Nueva Córdoba neighborhood. During the journey, the gang apparently led by two brothers – one a minor and the other with the majority fulfilled – would have stolen at least three cell phones, caps and wallets.
The persecution ended at the intersection of Chacabuco and Obispo Oro, when a widespread operation managed to detain and arrest the youths.
The events occurred four days after the retirement of the general director of Capital Security, Cristian Raúl Moreno, after the demand of seven neighborhoods in the southeast for more security. Even that police position, which is in charge of security planning in the city of Córdoba, was not covered. Commissioner Moreno currently has a license and the new designation will become effective once his retirement is completed.
The operation to disrupt the gang from within
The faces of astonishment multiplied between the police lines. “They are too small to steal,” some dared to comment after the first hours of the events.
The truth is that the persecution required a great deployment through the streets. In addition, it had the support of the video surveillance circuit. No less important were the constant calls that entered 911 during the journey that the band made.
Precisely, in Calle Obispo Oro at 343, the uniformed men managed to stop the contingent. “22 young people who had participated in different thefts were controlled. During a journey that covered a good part of the Nueva Córdoba neighborhood, they beat and threatened several passers-by,” they said from the Police.
After the preventive examination to rule out carrying weapons, a cell phone that did not belong to him was seized from one of the group’s leaders, according to what was assured. “At that time, during the control, people came to warn that this subject was the material author of an act of robbery,” they expanded.
With that information, a cell phone could be returned to its owners. However, at least three other victims could not recover their belongings.
After the arrest, the band was transferred to the courts. As reported, the case fell to the district attorney’s office 1, turn 3, in charge of José Mana. Meanwhile, the minors were made available to the corresponding court on duty.
The prosecutor’s office reported that due to the facts, a case involving an adult and 19 minors is being processed. In addition, two other majors are involved in other cases about which details are analyzed, through video surveillance cameras, to determine if they are related to these “piranha robberies.”
Minors, it was clarified, are at the disposal of the Juvenile Criminal Court.
“We are concerned about the ages of the boys. The majority are between 12 and 13 years old and that is the age at which they begin to commit crimes. During the arrests there were no struggles or acts of violence”, detailed from the Police.
A mother tells what happens to children who steal
Lidia (not her real name) attends to The voice and takes his time to talk in detail. She asks that her data not be disclosed and she has a photo of her son next to her. She is lightly emptying a box of Marlboro 10 while his hand trembles as the testimony about the latest piranha robbery in the city of Córdoba unfolds.
She is the mother of one of the 12-year-old boys who on Sunday attacked, in a herd, the area of the Sarmiento park and the Nueva Córdoba neighborhood.
“I don’t know what else to do with him. He suddenly got big and I couldn’t control him anymore. He was imprisoned in an institute for hanging out with his friends ‘snotting’ and it came out worse, ”he says with a grim face.
The conversation takes place in a precarious house in the 1° de Mayo neighborhood. The woman assures that the “gang of the Park”, which carried out these thefts in herds, originated in the José Ignacio Díaz neighborhood.
“There is a boy who manages everything, who is older, he is about 16 years old. He lives in the area and hangs out with people from Villa El Libertador, the 23 de Abril neighborhood, and José Ignacio Díaz. Every Sunday they go to bother the park ”, he recounts.
The mother says angrily that the gang is involved in the retail sale of drugs: “My son was not like that. He went to primary school, but I am a domestic worker, in black, and I am almost never at home. He began to hang out with others who led him astray and now they sell joints and merchandise.
That area – he affirms – is led by “the narcos”. “It would be enough to investigate Colombians who give ‘loans,’ or political leaders who exchange votes for marijuana,” she warns.
“I’m fed up,” she warns as she wipes away a few tears and lights a new cigarette.
The woman tries to explain that “to throw mucus is to enter to steal, fight every day with someone new and put together to go from dance to dance.”
“The boys are lost in drugs. The wings, the pills and the joint at all times is a poison that burns their heads. They are no longer in schools, they are on the cell phone, looking for the tip to buy something to consume ”, she says anguished.
Lidia claims to have sought help for her son at the Provincial Institute for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction (Ipad) and in schools. But they were unsuccessful.
“I don’t think it’s a hopeless case. We can’t write off any of the boys. But they come out of prisons worse, ”she warned.