The disappearance of Loan Danilo Peña, 5 years old, has kept Argentina in suspense for almost two weeks, with a police search complicated by the lack of clues and in which the help of neighboring Paraguay has even been requested due to the suspicion of who could have been kidnapped by a human trafficking network.
The Argentine Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, announced that she will meet this Tuesday with Paraguayan police forces during her visit to Asunción for the assembly of the Organization of American States, according to The Associated Press news agency.
Peña disappeared 11 days ago near the town of 9 de Julio, located in the northern province of Corrientes, about 124 miles from the border. “We want the Paraguayan police to work at a strong pace because it is a hypothesis [la del secuestro y trata de personas] that we have as possible,” Bullrich told Radio Miter.
There are six detainees allegedly linked to the investigation.
The disappearance of the minor has mobilized provincial and federal security forces, including divers and paratroopers, who have searched some 30,000 hectares of land; “It is the [operación] most important memory in the province,” according to the governor of Corrientes, Gustavo Valdez.
[“Cada día pienso en mi hija”: al menos 130 niños latinos en EE.UU. se encuentran desaparecidos]
Bullrich, however, questioned the “sloppy” investigation by Corrientes authorities in the early stages, and pointed out that this is why she requested the intervention of the federal justice system. “We were not able to access the case, we were only able to access it yesterday, which has created a very uncomfortable situation for those who are experts,” she said.
Corrientes, in the northeast of Argentina, shares a porous border with Paraguay to the north and also borders the Argentine provinces of Santa Fe, Chaco and Misiones, which in turn neighbors Brazil.
The Efe news agency reported that this Monday the Corrientes authorities questioned three of the six detainees: Victoria Caillava, an official from the municipality of 9 de Julio; her husband, Carlos Pérez; and the commissioner of that town, Walter Maciel, accused of covering up the alleged crime.
Justice is trying to determine if the detained couple could have transported the child in a van and car on the day of his disappearance. In the expert reports carried out on Caillava’s car and her husband’s truck, traces of the minor were found, which supports the suspicion that they were used to transport him before being handed over to another person in the province of Chaco.
Most of the suspects participated in a lunch on June 13 at the house of the child’s paternal grandmother in a rural area near 9 de Julio, after which trace of the minor was lost.
The governor of Corrientes, Gustavo Valdez, pointed out that “it is very likely” that Peña “is no longer in the area” and agreed with the minister that it could be due to a case of “human trafficking.”
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According to what the Argentine authorities have reconstructed, on June 13 the boy was with his father, José Peña, when they went to lunch at the house of his paternal grandmother, Catalina Peña, in Paraje Algarrobal. At 2 in the afternoon the minor went to the mountains to pick oranges in the company of other children and three adults.
At 2:20 in the afternoon, when the group was preparing to return, the adults say they realized that the child had disappeared.
[La policía descubre que dos niños llevan años desaparecidos y sus padres nunca los reportaron]
The first three arrested and charged with abandonment of person were the adults who accompanied him: Bernardino Benítez, the child’s uncle; Daniel Fierrito Ramírez, and his partner, Mónica del Carmen Millapi.
The Argentine newspaper Clarín reported that Carlos Pérez, the officer’s husband, who is also detained, tried to hang himself with a shoelace, but an agent thwarted his attempt.
