Gendarmería Nacional carried out the operation and detained the 15 members of the organisation.[1] The three timber businessmen later charged were detained on Thursday 30 November 2017, after gendarmes searched a warehouse on Avenida El Fundador in Eldorado.[2]
Officers carried out 15 searches in Eldorado, Alem, Oberá, Jardín América, Posadas and the Buenos Aires suburbs, detained 15 people and seized 3,116 kilograms of marijuana in 3,573 brick packages.[1] Besides a truck with a trailer, officers seized 200,000 pesos in cash, 44 vehicles used by the network and 15 mobile phones, together with circular saws, nails, grease and packing tape.[1] The same day a dozen or so people were detained in searches in Eldorado, Oberá, Posadas, Leandro N. Alem and Arroyo del Medio.[2]
The group camouflaged the marijuana among timber, wrapped it in lithium grease and hid it in vehicles taken toward Buenos Aires province.[1] The ministry identified a family boss, the drivers and necessary participants in Buenos Aires province, Misiones and Paraguay.[1] The inquiry began from a 2016 seizure of 2,500 kilos of marijuana hidden in a false floor of a truck from Misiones.[1] The ministry put the two operations together at 5,370.356 kilos of marijuana.[1]
Three timber businessmen from Oberá and Eldorado were indicted with pretrial detention as leaders of a network that moved marijuana from Misiones to Buenos Aires in timber trucks.[2] The Federal Court of Lomas de Zamora adopted the ruling, the Federal Chamber of La Plata upheld it, and each of the three was ordered to face a 200,000-peso embargo.[2] The three were formally charged with organising the transport of narcotics, aggravated by the number of people involved, an offence that can carry up to 20 years in prison.[2] A fourth man, said to have rented a warehouse in Esteban Echeverría where the drug was unloaded, was formally accused of aggravated storage.[2] The same ruling found no case to answer against three other detainees, who were released at once.[2] The November searches were ordered by Criminal and Correctional Court No. 2 of Lomas de Zamora, under Federico Hernán Villena, and the Federal Court of Eldorado, under Miguel Ángel Guerrero.[1]
