The operation plotted by two drug lords from the local scene, who had met some time ago in the Reverend Francisco Luchesse prison complex, located in the Córdoba town of Bouwer, has just suffered a “hard blow” in the hands of the Anti-Narcotics Police Force ( FPA) and the Argentine Federal Police (PFA): in combination and simultaneously they carried out five raids in the Villa Urquiza and Nueva Esperanza neighborhoods and another three in Villa del Rosario.
In addition, they launched more than 30 raids on an entire wing of the aforementioned penitentiary, widely known as “Bouwer prison,” with orders from the prosecutor handling the case, Carlos Cornejo.
The operations began on Thursday morning and are expected to last until the afternoon. “The raid on the penitentiary is complex because it is a complete square, which has between 30 and 40 cells,” a high-ranking FPA source confirmed to this medium.
The police said the operation had already resulted in a significant amount of drugs seized, arrests and a drug organization “dismantled.”
Behind the drug network there is “a complex organization,” the investigators said.
Everything refers to two arrests that occurred in 2021 and 2022. The prisoners are a renowned trafficker, of Peruvian nationality, who operates in the northwest area of the Capital and a leader in drug trafficking, arrested a year later, who commands in the town of Villa del Rosario.
The hours shared behind bars, in the same cell, served the couple to strengthen an association that led to the expansion of criminal activity.
With an established society and well-segmented functions, they rose through the ranks in such a way that they are being investigated as those allegedly responsible for the entry of large quantities of drugs into the Bouwer prison.
According to the investigations, the operation was carried out completely in the privacy of the prison. And both prisoners are the head of a family criminal association that expanded over the years.
Prison and family: the axes of the business
According to a long-term investigation that culminated this Thursday in the succession of raids against a drug gang, prison and family ties would be the keys to understanding how two heavyweights in drug trafficking continued to be active in Córdoba.
When in 2021 the Police laid their hands on a family of Peruvians who lived in the Villa Urquiza neighborhood area, northwest of Córdoba, it was believed that an important “leader” had fallen behind bars who even had complicities with his neighbors to take refuge in the silence of others and make their negotiations more extensive. More than one expected that even in prison he would seek to continue with the bad life.
This was apparently accentuated when the following year, another drug kingpin, originally from Villa del Rosario, entered Bouwer, and into the same cell, for whom the search warrant arrived in 2022. Both are currently locked up under the same roof.
From there they would have planned and dominated the new drug scene that continues to plague the city. And not only would they have executed him in their areas of influence but they would have extended their activity inside the prison.
During the raids this Thursday, the main targets were the relatives of the drug lords already detained. In Villa Urquiza and Nueva Esperanza neighborhoods, the FPA detained the wife, daughter-in-law and another woman linked to the Peruvian detainee.
Meanwhile, three raids are being completed in the town of Villa del Rosario, where the main targets are the relatives of the prisoner who came from that same town.
According to investigators, the drug trafficking couple relied on their closest ties to continue feeding the drug network they maintained outside and inside the penitentiary.
Abroad, they would have continued selling narcotics in homes in the sector and through delivery. In prison, the procedure that would have allowed them to bring in a large amount of drugs is being investigated, as confirmed by FPA sources.
“As it was found that there is a relationship between the detainees, who share the same pavilion, the cases are related to each other and instead of having two, they created one. This allowed the launch of the raids simultaneously,” said investigation sources.
Raid on Bouwer prison
With a significant deployment of the Argentine Federal Police this Thursday, an operation with massive raids is being carried out in a wing of the Bouwer prison. The movements began in the morning and will affect more than 30 cells.
A detail of the operation, with its results, is expected in the next few hours. It was already anticipated that a significant amount of drugs were seized, that there were arrests and that it was considered that the drug organization had been dismantled.
