A family argument in Capital, the city of San Juan, ended with police finding a cannabis crop in a house yard after Roberto Carlos Albarracín, 36, reported that his brother, Sergio Ariel Albarracín, 38, had threatened to kill him and fled.[1] Officers of the Comando Urbano, the urban police command, reached the house after a 911 call and were met by Roberto Carlos Albarracín, who said his brother had pointed a gun at him and threatened him before escaping.[2][3] Police told Diario El Zonda that Roberto Albarracín was agitated when the officers arrived and that he said the fugitive used the property to bury items of illicit origin, which led them to inspect the ground with his permission.[1]
Along the sides of the front of the plot, officers found 22 large plants in the ground and seven more that were drying.[1] In all they seized 29 plants.[1] Staff of the Departamento Drogas Ilegales, the illegal-drugs unit, field-tested the plants, confirmed they were cannabis and ordered the plant material confiscated.[1]
Assistant federal prosecutor Mariana Gauto, of the Unidad Fiscal Federal de San Juan, the federal prosecutor’s unit in the province, ordered every plant seized and opened an investigation for an alleged breach of Law 23.737, Argentina’s narcotics statute.[1] In parallel, assistant prosecutor Daniel Tejada directed the complainant to formalise a criminal complaint for threats against his brother.[1][3] Sergio Ariel Albarracín remained a fugitive and was still being sought by police.[1] The file was left open on both the alleged threats and the federal case over the seized crop, with the confiscated plants as the central evidence.[1]
Roberto Carlos Albarracín identified his brother, who remained a fugitive, as the person responsible for the planting.[3]
