Gendarmes find .22 carbine and 41 g of marijuana in a Ruta 12 car check
Gendarmes stopped a car at night at kilometre 85.500 of Ruta Nacional 12 near Zárate, Buenos Aires province, and found an unlicensed .22-calibre carbine with 35 rounds. A sniffer dog led them to 41 grams of marijuana in the driver's backpack, and a Zárate prosecutor ordered the weapon, ammunition and drug seized and left the driver at the disposal of the case.
🇦🇷 Ruta Nacional 12, km 85.500, near Zárate, Buenos Aires · Argentina
Gendarmes of the security section “Paraná de las Palmas”, part of Squadron 63
“Zárate-Brazo Largo” of the Gendarmería Nacional, stopped a vehicle at night
during checks on Ruta Nacional 12 at kilometre 85.500.[1]The procedure was
carried out under Argentina’s drug law 23.737 and its arms and explosives law
20.429.[1]
The driver carried a .22-calibre carbine with 35 rounds of ammunition and no
legal permit for it.[1]Officers then searched further with a sniffer dog,
which reacted to the driver’s backpack.[1]Inside the backpack, opened in
front of witnesses, they found a transparent bag of green plant material, and a
Narcotest field screening was positive for marijuana.[1]The marijuana in the
bag weighed 41 grams, and the driver was held in the case opened over the find.[1]
Zárate’s prosecutor’s unit No. 8 ordered the carbine, the 35 rounds and the
marijuana seized.[1]The same unit left the driver at the disposal of the
investigation under the drug and arms laws.[1]
Photos and video
Photo published with the release on the Ruta Nacional 12 vehicle check, beside the rifle and marijuana passages; the page gives it no caption or credit. Photo: Gendarmería Nacional ArgentinaPhoto details
The release gives no calendar date; it was published on 1 May 2026 and says the stop happened "ayer" (the day before), so 30 April 2026 is used as the incident date.
The release says the driver was left at the disposal of the case ("supeditado a la causa") but does not state that he was formally detained or charged, and no name, age or nationality of the driver was published.
No court stage beyond the prosecutor's seizure order was reported; no charge, indictment or sentence is known.
The 41 grams were weighed as seized and identified by a field screening test (Narcotest), not necessarily by a laboratory analysis.
Only the Gendarmería release could be opened; no independent outlet account of this stop was opened for this report.
Kilometre 85.500 of Ruta Nacional 12 is not a mapped point in the release, so the coordinates are those of Zárate as the nearest named locality and the place is recorded with district precision.
The release's two photos carry no captions, alt text or credits, so their contents are identified only from their placement beside the rifle and marijuana passages.
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