by Ol'ga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] They were found buried in the garden of a house on the outskirts of the municipality of Florencio Varela in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires.
Three dismembered bodies, who until recently were Morena Verdi and Brenda del Castillo, cousins, aged twenty, and Lara Gutierrez, aged fifteen.
They were last seen around September 19th. Then, the girls got into a car—later revealed to have fake license plates—and disappeared in an unknown direction. They allegedly planned to attend a party. However, some claim that Morena, Brenda, and Lara were promised not only a party but also payment for potential sexual services.
As is already clear, things ended differently. The girls were not only brutally tortured and mutilated, but the events were also broadcast to a private social media chat room, which was shared by approximately forty-five people associated with their tormentors.
According to Argentine operatives, representatives of an Argentine-Peruvian drug trafficking group were behind the crime.
"THAT'S WHAT THEY DO TO THIEVES."
During the horrific stream, the killers declared that "this is what they do to those who steal my drugs."
According to police, the massacre was indeed carried out to “send a message” after one of the victims stole a small package of illegal substances.
The provincial security minister later confirmed the version at a press conference, calling the torture and murder a “settling of scores.”
It was this detail that created a real stir in the Argentine media, where such things are not nearly as common as in Mexico, Colombia or Ecuador.
In these countries, this really does happen almost every week: cartel members stage public executions for a variety of reasons. Some are sent to the afterlife for espionage, others for treason, but there's another, very broad category of those killed: those who tried to harm the "business" in one way or another.
It doesn't matter how. Some try to sell drugs without asking permission or sharing. Some sell them in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and not under the name of the "right" people—they're dealt with under the guise of "poisoning our children."
And then there are those who "stole from the cartel." And that's where you have to watch out. This could be drugs, various types of fuel, weapons, all kinds of contraband. And in such cases, to avoid further incidents and conduct "public outreach," a showpiece murder is committed, news of which is disseminated on social media with due fanfare.
In Mexico, they don't limit themselves to online communities. Dismembered bodies are left in bags (or even without them) in public places, and planted at the doors of police stations and government agencies. In some cases, they are hanged from bridges without dismemberment, but this is more of an execution for competitors than for thieves.
Very often, the victims of such stories are young or elderly women. In such cases, the cartel always uses language related to theft or "child poisoning" in an attempt to justify itself. It's not like they're going to lose their status as "protectors of the common people" over such stories.
DRUG DEALER IN A FISH TRUCK
But let's return to Argentina. Shortly after the bodies were discovered, four people were arrested—two men and two women. During interrogation, it emerged that the main culprit was a Peruvian nicknamed "Little Jota." He was the one who complained on camera about the girls stealing his drugs.
A few days later, "Little Jota" was arrested in Peru; he turned out to be 20-year-old Tony Valverde Victoriano. He was pulled from a truck carrying fish seventy kilometers from the Peruvian capital.
Victoriano has vehemently denied any involvement in either the murder or the drug mafia. However, Argentine authorities, cooperating with the Peruvian National Police, reported that they possessed telephone recordings and the identity of Victoriano's closest associate, at whose meeting he was captured.
Thanks to wiretaps, it was discovered that the girls had stolen three kilograms of cocaine from "Little Jota," for which he took revenge.
BENEFIT FOR MILEUS
The incident also fueled political tensions.
Before the criminals were caught, Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, who is also one of the main opposition figures against President Javier Miley, stated that the criminals most likely had a base of operations in the capital.
National Security Minister Patricia Bullrich publicly questioned the governor's words and said that he, Kicillof, must solve the province's enormous security problem - even though he has no information about those involved in the massacre.
She was indirectly echoed by the bishopric, in whose diocese the murder occurred. Priests declared that vast swaths of the country had fallen under the control of the drug mafia, and that a criminal culture of death was developing among the youth.
Relatives of the victims and feminist organizations predictably took to the streets to demonstrate.
Javier Miley, however, once again reiterated his own words about intolerance towards drug trafficking and banditry, and at the same time began introducing amendments to the criminal code.
The amendments include lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 13 and increasing penalties for crimes against private property and public order. In principle, this was planned without the murder of the girls, but now the publicity campaign for the amendments can be much more active.
And this won't do any harm to the Miley regime, which is losing popularity.