The bodies of three young women, two aged 20 and one aged 15, have been discovered on the outskirts of Buenos Aires in what authorities say they are investigating as a drug-trafficking revenge attack.
Police in Buenos Aires Province confirmed Wednesday that the mutilated corpses of Morena Verri (20), Brenda Loreley Del Castillo (20) and Lara Morena Gutiérrez (15) had been found in Florencio Varela, on the southern outskirts of the capital.
The trio, all from La Matanza, had gone missing five days earlier.
Their bodies, bound with tape around their feet, hands, neck and face, were discovered at a home in the area.
Forensic examinations revealed they had been brutally tortured before being killed. Families later identified them from photographs shown by investigators at a morgue in La Matanza.
Eight people are now in custody. Several were detained on Wednesday after a raid in Villa Zavaleta (also known as Villa 21-24), in the City neighbourhood of Barracas, with City officers assisting provincial police without leading the raid.
Four others had been detained the previous day, including a woman who reportedly confessed, telling officers they “had messed up.”
Investigators believe the victims voluntarily got into a van on Friday night, thinking they were heading to a party. Instead they were taken to a house in Florencio Varela. The vehicle was later found burned out near the crime scene.
According to reports, the victims had been “tricked” into attending a so-called “narco party” linked to a Peruvian gang from Villa 1-11-14 in Buenos Aires City.
But instead of festivities, the young women walked straight into a trap.
“They were supposedly going to attend an event they had been invited to, unaware they were walking into a trap set by a transnational drug-trafficking organisation that had devised a plan to kill them,” said Buenos Aires Province Security Minister Javier Alonso at a press conference on Wednesday.
Alonso said the murders likely took place the same night the women disappeared. Tracking their mobile phones enabled police to reconstruct the teenagers’ movements.
Motive
The motive for the killings is still under investigation, but Alonso noted that the women had met “some members of this organisation some time earlier” and that “something that happened then led to this revenge attack.”
Local reports suggest the killings were retaliation for the theft of cocaine from a trafficker.
Alonso also confirmed that the torture was live-streamed on social media to a “closed group” of about 45 people. In the footage, one participant allegedly said: “This is what happens when you steal from me.”
Autopsy leaks published by local media indicate the three were savagely tortured before being murdered. One victim suffered multiple amputations, others had burn marks and all were bound with tape. The killings are believed to have occurred in the early hours of Saturday.
According to police sources, one victim was found buried in the patio of a house, with another inside a burned-out truck resembling the vehicle they had last been seen in.
Officers had earlier found bloodstains in a nearby field.
The authorities later carried out an urgent search of a flat reportedly rented that Friday by members of the Peruvian gang from Villa 1-11-14, where the so-called ‘narco party’ had been organised.
During the raid, police said they discovered two suspects “cleaning with bleach the remains of blood that was everywhere.”
One officer described the scene to the TN news channel as “an absolute horror.”
Political turmoil
News of the gruesome crime shocked Argentines and sparked an immediate political row.
Critics of President Javier Milei blamed the dismantling of gender-violence programmes, while his supporters pointed to Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, a leading Peronist, accusing him of failing to control drug crime.
Kicillof, posting on social media, called for stronger action. “We have to get involved in the fight to end drug-trafficking. Otherwise, it continues and goes unpunished,” he wrote.
Residents of Florencio Varela also staged protests. On Tuesday, residents gathered at the roundabout where the girls were last seen. After the discovery of the bodies, demonstrators returned the following day, blocking roads and burning tyres to demand justice.”
– TIMES/PERFIL/AFP
