Gendarmería Nacional officers arrested Mariela Alejandra Terán, the 27-year-old daughter of Itatí’s mayor Roger Terán, and her husband, Ricardo Walter Piris, 38, in the city of Corrientes on 14 February 2017, accused of belonging to a criminal organisation that moved marijuana from Paraguay into seven provinces.[1]

The detentions followed several simultaneous raids the previous day by the Gendarmería’s Unidad de Operaciones Especiales Antidrogas, the most important at Itatí’s town hall and at Terán’s home in the provincial capital, on the order of substitute federal judge Juan Carlos Vallejos.[1]

Two other suspects were still at large, including the man prosecutors called the organisation’s leader, Luis “El Gordo” Saucedo, 36, whose employment file was seized in the town hall raid.[1] Prosecutors had asked that all those involved be investigated for criminal association, organised drug trafficking, money laundering and document falsification.[1]

Searches around the capital and Itatí seized 26 cars of high-end make, three motorcycles and a boat that were used to move the marijuana, and federal judge Vallejos ordered them frozen for eventual confiscation.[1]

The Security Ministry said Itatí, a town of 7,900 people, was the Corrientes municipality with the most marijuana seized since December 2015, more than eight tonnes, making it one of the main entry points for the drug trade.[2] The ministry added that 34 tonnes of marijuana were seized in Corrientes province in 2016 and three tonnes in three major operations so far in 2017, figures about earlier seizures that are not included in this report’s figures.[2] The ministry said Gendarmería officers carried out great numbers of raids on Itatí and seized more than eight tonnes of marijuana there during Patricia Bullrich’s tenure, and called the February operation the end of political-criminal corruption in the town.[3]