On a Thursday, a family lunch becomes the last trace of a child in the town of 9 de Julio. The adults who were there that day say that he went to pick oranges, but never came back. Was he lost? Was he kidnapped? Was he in an accident? Was he killed? The police, prosecutors, judges, family members and politicians: Are they looking for Loan or hiding business?
Missing
In the first hours after Loan disappeared, the town lost power. That was why the security cameras stopped working. The distribution company claimed that the north wind damaged the power lines. During all this time, the prosecutor clung to a single hypothesis: The boy had gotten lost, looking for “oranges.”
The State, at its various levels, rather than clarifying or giving clarity to the journalistic work, leaked information of dubious quality and then even backtracked. At the national level, it intervened with delays. The Sofia alert, a protocol that is activated in the first hours after a child or adolescent disappears who may be in danger, in this case was activated a day later. Why?
“Initially, the protocol for the Alerta Sofía application was poorly done because it was limited to the dissemination of Loan on social networks and in the media, but the complete application was not generated,” explained José Serbin, a representative of the Alameda Foundation, in the province of Corrientes. According to the social representative, in order to search for people, what has to be done “is to create roadblocks; involve the National Directorate of Migration to check migrations at the different borders of our country; the National Commission for the Regulation of Transport and the different powers of the State, because what they have to do is activate everything as quickly as possible because the first hours are really very important.
Only ten days later did the federal justice system appear, Patricia Bullrich, the Minister of National Security, came into the picture, arriving in Corrientes to announce that the case was leaving the provincial sphere and going to the federal level. The government was very direct: “There are trafficking networks that sell children as puppies,” said the National Director of Regulations and Judicial Liaison of the Ministry of National Security, Fernando Soto. Meanwhile, Patricia Bullrich went around the media saying that they were going to “scan the bellies of alligators and pumas.” Yes, even if it seems fake or a joke in bad taste, it is true.
A crime of power
Route 123, a few meters from the entrance to 9 de Julio, was the scene; they burned tires shouting “children are not to be touched.” Do you know what’s going on here? a young woman carrying a sign with Loan’s face in her hand tells the media. Everything is rotten here, the political and judicial power is responsible, they should return him now! shouts another woman while holding a child in her arms.
“I am not afraid, because I am not involved in mafias, I am not involved with drug traffickers, I do not steal from the people, I am a simple teacher. This one that you must know, this one who is today the Minister of Planning, this scoundrel, was brought here because of a political favor that Maciel did for him.” A teacher shouts in the face of the mayor of 9 de Julio, while others with a flag stand next to her to show that she is not alone, and that there are many in the town who think this way: “Because you are the cradle of corruption,” .Someone is heard screaming.
Another neighbor, in response to Laudelina’s first confession (Loan’s aunt), who at that time claimed that the child died in an accident caused by Carlos Pérez and María Caillava, said in front of the cameras: “These are lies. If the family doesn’t believe it, how can the people believe it?” He later pointed the finger at Governor Gustavo Valdés, who welcomed the confession of Loan’s family. “All he is doing is covering up his own shit, the whole town knows it”. “This province is the product of a system of complicity, equivalent to that of a mafia society,” shouts a young man holding a banner with the inscription “Return a Loan”.
The governor of the province is Gustavo Valdés, a radical who has governed Corrientes since 2017, and was received a few days ago by Guillermo Francos. Valdés appeared at the Casa Rosada after reappearing publicly on Monday for the signing of the May Pact in Tucumán.
However, although the operation seems to be “to separate the judicial situation of Loan’s disappearance from his management as a public official”, he keeps appearing in the media involved in situations that complicate things for him and his family. Let us remember his Twitter account in the first days of Loan’s disappearance, relying on Laudelina’s false statement, trying to close the case.
Laudelina testified before both the Attorney General’s Office and the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office. #Corrientesand would have narrated how the events of the Loan Case occurred.
All proceedings are being submitted to the Federal Court for legal action.
— Gustavo Valdés (@gustavovaldesok) June 29, 2024
Days later, a woman appeared in the media, denouncing that she had been abused by the governor’s father and that her son was the governor’s brother.
He is not lost, he was taken by a trafficking network
Under the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice of the Nation, Line 145 is implemented, which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and is administered by PROTEX within the framework of the Synchronized System of Reports on Crimes of Trafficking and Exploitation of Persons created by Law No. 26,842.
According to data published by the Ministry of Justice, in the last 5 years, between January 2020 and May 2024, the hotline received more than 7,500 reports of human trafficking.
In this regard, according to statistical information provided by the National Rescue Program of the Ministry of Justice of the Nation, 933 people were rescued during 2020, 1,404 in 2021, 1,186 in 2022 and 1,552 in 2023. Regarding the victims, 98.6% of the 1,301 people affected by this type of exploitation were women; and 10.4% of them were children and/or adolescents.
A report by the Office of the Prosecutor for Human Trafficking and Exploitation (PROTEX) recognized the province of Corrientes as a place where victims are recruited for human trafficking and also shows it as a site of sexual exploitation.
In Loan’s disappearance, Walter Maciel, who was in charge of the local police station, was accused of concealment for delaying the start of the search and initially focusing on the hypothesis of a“accidental loss”. It is impossible not to associate Cristian González with the town priest who called “not to march” and accommodated the commissioner in his house. The same commissioner who is also recognized in the town for “taking pictures of children”.
They know the circuit, how they capture their victims, how they torture, drug, rape and exploit girls and women. They also know and decide where they take them, from province to province and sometimes even from one country to another. Every policeman on every street knows where the brothels are and who the owners are. Most of the time the owners are businessmen, mayors, governors and other political officials; the justice system and other state institutions. A true “network”, a materially and economically organized circuit.
More than a month after Loan’s disappearance, the family’s anguish continues and the State as a whole continues to bear responsibility, a cry that spreads throughout the country “return a loan”.
The need to intervene in this crisis independently
The people of Corrientes are standing up. The open crisis over political representation has political leaders with names and surnames. This crisis also affects the national government of Javier Milei, and there are questions against Patricia Bullrich for her support of the governor and the Corrientes police. With the demonstrations and the power of the people of Corrientes, the resignation of the provincial Minister of Security and the top brass of the police was achieved, however these measures are not enough to dismantle this network, which has been doing business for decades in one of the provinces with structural poverty.
Added to this is the fact that Governor Valdez speaks of “caranchos”, who is he referring to?
Who are they trying to control in the interests of the bosses, who are now in charge? This crisis of representation is proof that everyone has already governed, everyone has been used as a clientelist in exchange for votes. Traditional politicians do not intend to change anything fundamentally because they are faithful to the same business interests. That is why a fundamental solution can only be achieved by attacking the interests of big business and landowners.
The pot that was uncovered by the Loan situation, put on the table the complicity of the political, police and judicial power in the province. All this anger must be organized to fundamentally transform a province that was always governed by and for businessmen, of different political colors, but that never stopped supporting a system of leaders that is at the service of social and territorial control in the midst of enormous poverty, that is why we cannot trust any of these officials.
To really make progress in the investigation of this case, and above all, to really put an end to this business, we must dismantle the human trafficking networks; create independent investigative bodies, in the hands of the victims, their families, and women’s, social and human rights organizations that act with total independence from the State institutions, the parties and officials that manage this business.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
