Gendarmería Nacional detained 19 people after a judicial investigation into a gang that was bringing marijuana into Argentina by river from Paraguay.[1] The force seized 292 kilograms and 220 grams of cannabis sativa carried on a ship from Paraguay, after surveillance that began north of Piedras Blancas, on the Entre Ríos bank of the Paraná.[1] Eleven crew members were detained as they transferred the load to a launch that was to take it to a house.[1] Fifteen raids in Santa Fe then led to eight further detentions, and officers also seized drugs, vehicles, Argentine currency and weapons.[1]

In the early hours of the previous day, during a sweep at kilometre 706 of the Paraná, officers using a night-vision scope saw a Paraguayan-flagged tanker, 122 metres long and 15 metres in beam, stop and throw large bundles into a launch.[1] Hours later, after a controlled follow, they found the boat arriving at a house near Santa Rosa de Calchines, in Santa Fe province.[1] A search of the boat before witnesses led to the detention of five people as they landed five bags holding 303 packages of the marijuana.[1]

On the magistrate’s orders, officers searched the ship and raided 15 homes in the cities of Santa Fe and Recreo, steps the force said produced the detention of 19 members of the gang that moved drugs by river from Paraguay.[1] They also seized 101,175 Argentine pesos, marijuana, five scales, three vehicles, a motorcycle, mobile phones, a .38-calibre revolver with 23 rounds, cartridges of various calibres, and documents of interest to the case.[1] The Buenos Aires Sur criminal intelligence squadron worked with Region II units, Paraguay’s SENAD anti-drug secretariat, the Argentine Naval Prefecture and Customs, on a case opened in August of the previous year before Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 3 in Morón and the federal prosecutor’s office in Hurlingham.[1] Judge Néstor Barral was in charge of that Morón court, and prosecutor Santiago Marquevich led the Hurlingham federal prosecutor’s office on the case.[2]