Specialist officers of the Prefectura Naval seized marijuana hidden under a firewood load in a truck and detained three people.[1] The operation was carried out in Vera, in Santa Fe province.[1] Officers intercepted the suspect truck at kilometre 722 of National Route 11.[1] They also stopped a utility car that was acting as a puntero, a scout meant to warn the truck’s occupant to avoid roadside checks.[1] The Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Reconquista said the stop was made on the afternoon of 22 April 2021, when officers found a Renault Kangoo and a Scania truck loaded with firewood parked on the shoulder in Vera.[2]

Investigation had indicated that a truck carrying marijuana from Resistencia, in Chaco, would pass through Vera on its way to Rosario.[1] Under the firewood, officers found 23 bundles holding 413 panes, pressed blocks of the drug, a little more than 545 kilograms.[1] The prosecutor’s office later recorded the weight as 545,412 kilograms of marijuana hidden among the firewood.[2] Prefectura valued the marijuana at more than 65,400,000 pesos.[3] Federal judge Aldo Alurralde of Reconquista ordered the marijuana seized and the three people detained.[1] The Prefectura’s own account said the judge ordered the detention of two men and one woman.[3]

El Litoral reported that Judge Alurralde then processed the three with pretrial detention for aggravated transport of narcotics by three or more people organised to commit it.[4] The paper named the truck driver as Roberto García, 60, the owner as Julio Ireneo Hoyos, 39, and his companion as Olga Noemí Ledesma, 48, all from Resistencia.[4] The judge ordered both the Scania truck and the Kangoo seized, and set a 500,000 peso asset embargo on each of the three.[4] On 13 July 2022, federal prosecutor Roberto Salum asked Judge Alurralde to send six people to trial for transporting 545,412 kilograms of marijuana from Chaco toward Rosario.[2] The prosecutor said the six should face trial as authors of aggravated transport of narcotics by three or more people organised to commit it.[2] In October 2021, searches in Chaco, Corrientes and Santa Fe detained the alleged supplier of the load.[2] Searches at two homes in Ibarlucea seized a further 2,204 kilograms of marijuana and six cannabis plants, a later find kept out of the truck-load figures.[2]