Argentina’s security forces dealt successive blows to narcotrafficking between September and October, with the cooperation of countries of the region.
One of the most important blows occurred on October 28, when agents of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA) and the Peruvian National Police (PNP) captured Raúl Martín Maylli Rivera, alias Dumbo, Argentina’s most wanted narcotrafficker, in Lima. Alias Dumbo, who had been on the run for more than a year, controlled the sale of drugs in a Buenos Aires’ neighborhood, according to Argentine authorities.
“Something that caught the attention of the PNP during the arrest of Raúl Martín Maylli is that he was listed as deceased,” Peru’s El Comercio newspaper reported. “They even found a death certificate in his room. According to the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status, alias Dumbo had died on January 25 of this year [2022].”
“[Maylli] carried out his activities with a false identity card from the Plurinational State of Bolivia,” said PNP General Denis Rodríguez, head of Peru’s Anti-Drug Directorate, daily Perú21 reported. PFA agents and their Peruvian counterparts carried out the operation after tracking alias Dumbo’s most trusted associates in Argentina and Uruguay, Argentine newspaper Página12 reported.
According to Página12, the Peruvian narcotrafficker had a national and international warrant for his arrest since May 2021, having been identified by the Argentine justice system as the “head of an organization primarily dedicated to the distribution and commercialization of narcotics” in Buenos Aires.
More than 2 tons of marijuana
On October 9, in another blow to regional narcotrafficking, members of the Argentine Gendarmerie’s 50th Posadas Squadron seized nearly 2.4 tons of marijuana in the province of Misiones. The operation began when authorities obtained information about two people being involved in the suspicious transfer of packages in a house of the town of Garupá.
“Upon entering the home, [officers] discovered the drugs in 2,352 packages piled up in the bedroom and living room,” the Gendarmerie’s Institutional Communications Department told Diálogo. The two people fled into the mountainous area, abandoning a bag with packages of drugs inside.
Cooperation with Paraguay
Argentine authorities also intensified cooperation with their Paraguayan counterparts in the fight against narcotrafficking. In mid-September, the head of Argentina’s Federal Intelligence Agency, Cristina Caamaño, met in Paraguay with National Intelligence Secretariat Minister Esteban Aquino, and Minister Zully Rolón of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat.
“During the meetings, progress was made in cooperation mechanisms related to areas of interest such as transnational narcotrafficking and organized crime that may affect both countries,” the Argentine government said in a statement. “Caamaño highlighted the common agenda and stressed the need to articulate efforts against criminal networks that operate beyond states borders.”
Money laundering
Parallel to the fight against narcotrafficking, Argentine security forces carried out operations against money laundering. On October 28, the Gendarmerie dismantled a criminal organization operating in the province of Catamarca. Authorities arrested 11 people following 19 raids in San Fernando, the provincial capital. “The gendarmes arrested seven men and four women for alleged money laundering,” the Gendarmerie said in a statement.
During the operation, authorities also seized 14 vehicles, firearms, and rounds of ammunition of different calibers, computers, storage disks, cameras, bill counters, cash and foreign currency, checkbooks, and cell phones, the Gendarmerie said.
