Virginia Messi
07/19/2020 - 7:00
- Clarín.com
- Police
"Why do they call me 'Mameluco'? Ha! That is good," laughs Miguel Ángel Villalba, almost reluctantly, noted as one of the historical drug lords of western Conurbano and a strong man in San Martín, the district he wanted become mayor in 2010. His voice sounds clear on the phone despite the 1,300 kilometers away. Since October 13, 2017, Villalba has been imprisoned in Rawson's maximum security prison (Chubut).
"Kid stuff about 'Mameluco'. I went to a priest school in José León Suárez and on Thursdays you had to go to Mameluco. One day -it was a holiday- I was in the neighborhood, a Paraguayan family lived half a block away and the father did not want me to be together with his children. When he saw me, he did not remember my name and said to them: "Let's get in there is that romper suit. Bye, it was. We would be about 10 years old," says Villalba and assures that he tried get the nickname out of the pineapples, but it was useless.
The money he made with cocaine, the kidnappings suffered by both himself and members of his family, his frustrated political career and above all the accusation of having been the mastermind of the kidnapping and crime of Candela Sol Rodriguez (11), which occurred in August 2011. He spoke of everything in this interview with Clarín . "Ask what you want," he proposed.
The card of the arrest of drug lord Miguel Ángel "Mameluco" Villalba, in August 2011.
-How do you live in the Rawson prison?
- Rawson is quite complicated. Here come the people with the longest sentence. It is difficult to live and live together. You have to survive. Also with this pandemic there is no visit, we have nothing. In other words, we deal with parcels or with the canteen. And in the canteen there are many surcharges: a bundle of puchos 200 pesos, 160 a kilo of sugar, 250 grams of cheese 300 pesos. Everything is more expensive.
-Surely after the quarantine they set a date for the "Candela 2" trial in which he is accused.
- That judgment is a shame, an invention. I'm going to ask for a confrontation with whoever says I had something to do and I'm going to ask for compensation for all the years I carried this backpack on my back. Because there is something that the public and the judges and the prosecutors do not take into account: I am living free in life.
-What do you mean by "free"?
-In a "maximum" prison like Rawson, a person who is imprisoned for "rape", for "kidnapping followed by death" does not live well. They are playing with the physical integrity of a person, of my person.
The arrest of drug lord Miguel Ángel "Mameluco" Villalba, on the pages of the Clarín Police, in August 2011.
-You are used to confinement, but the accusation in the Candela case seems to have complicated your life.
-Obviously, do you know what it means to be in prison for rape?
-And for kidnapping an 11-year-old girl.
-Exactly. Can you imagine the headache that is?
-And how do you manage it?
- It is necessary to fight, to bancársela. They say "we put him on trial" because we want to put him on trial, either by propaganda or by a cartel. But it is not life as one thinks. None of them took measures to protect my physical integrity, nothing. Then I have no choice but to fight. Do I have another one? No, I have no other choice. I obviously am ready to go against a wall because I consider that I have nothing to do with what happened with Candela.
-Not?
-Not. So when I went to trial (NdR: testified as a witness in the first debate in the case that ended with three convictions) I answered all the questions they asked me. They told me that I had to put together a defense strategy and I didn't want to because I have nothing to do with it. I wanted to declare, I have nothing to hide. The culprits have to pay it. It is a very aberrant fact for anyone, for any parent or any person that exists in the world. They would have to be sentenced not to "life", but to a thousand years, never to go out again.
-If you had nothing to do with it, why in the "Candela 1" trial did you declare that the crime was related to drugs?
-Because it is the truth.
Candela Sol Rodríguez.
-And how do you know?
-Because it is known ... because everyone said so. Otherwise, what happened would not have happened. Because they asked for a ransom and they did not make it public, because the life that she and the family led ... They said that they lived at that time with 750 pesos and Candela had a phone that then cost 11 thousand pesos, I saw the photo. There was no way they could afford it.
Do you think the kidnapping was revenge against "Juancho" Rodríguez, the girl's father?
-I'm not saying it was a comeback for Juancho. Things were like this in San Martín: at the time, he was fighting a lot for drug trafficking places. And that it was given, it was given, honestly. I am not going to disrespect either the mother or the child. In San Martín it is known who is the son of so-and-so.
The hug between "Juancho" Rodríguez and Carola Labrador, at the trial for the case. Photo Diego Díaz.
-Justice maintains that you commissioned Héctor "El Topo" Moreyra, who is free but will go to court with you.
-I never saw "Topo". He knew who he was because in the neighborhood he was known to be a buchón. Imagine, one walks to the left and knows who is a crop and who is not a crop ... it's the truth. Why are we hiding something that is a reality! The point is that Moreyra was a crop: she had a record, she was stealing, she was hacking, she did everything and still she could get out and walk on the street as if nothing had happened. Obviously it was a crop! It was known by comments from people, neighbors, those who were walking on the stick, in the environment. Today she is also on the street, selling drugs.
-What the prosecutor says is that you sent "Topo" to kidnap Candela because "Topo" convinced him that "Juancho" had turned him over to the Police.
-Yes I know. So I testified at the trial. When Candela was kidnapped, I was in prison ... I was in prison. I don't even have a call crossing to frame me. I fall in cane one day Thursday and just Saturday night I was able to talk on the phone. So I'm a genius at kidnapping a person in two days ... crazy. "El Topo" Moreyra never spoke to me and if he says otherwise I ask for a confrontation at the trial.
Héctor "El Topo" Moreyra. Photo Alfredo Martínez.
-Did you know "Juancho" Rodríguez?
-No, I have never spoken to him in my life.
-Various times, in your defense, you said that you hated kidnappers.
-Yes, I don't accept them. I was kidnapped twice, in the 1990s, and in 2001 my brother was kidnapped. And I never retaliated. Of course, I made war on all the kidnappers inside the prison ... and I will continue to do so. I don't want any, none. I don't want the kidnappers. I can accept those people who steal, who sell drugs, who cheat. But I have a limit in life. I am a person who lived in an environment where codes have to be respected. So it's not that they only harm the person they kidnapped: there is a whole family behind that suffers. I lived it in my own flesh and I know what it is.
-In 2010 you campaigned to be mayor of San Martín. How did you come up with it? Do you think it ended up hurting him?
-Really yes, that ruined my life. It had never crossed my mind before. I grew up on the street, I know what hunger, cold, loneliness is, not having the affection of a family, I know. So at one point I had a lot of money and in turn many people who needed help and I helped with a wheelchair, medication, housing, mattresses. I helped thousands, out of love, not out of commitment. I didn't know that people loved me so much, I really didn't know. Then they convinced me to apply. And that was my mistake.
- Did you earn a lot of money?
-Yes, I won a lot of money, yes. But today I have no money. What is, is; what I lost, I lost; what is inverted is inverted. The trial for laundering was a mockery, an armed circus because they wanted an exemplary sentence, that was what they sought. I'm not saying I'm innocent, I'm guilty of what I did: I sold cocaine ... in my time I sold cocaine. Now, they tell me "the king of cocaine" and they condemn me the last time for 21 kilos of marijuana. Don't you think that everything is armed?
-To stop your political career?
-Maybe I'm not a person to be in politics. It is true: I do not consider that a person who has a history, who has committed crimes, who has sold drugs, is a public person, or has a political office. I understand and respect it.
-It is said that there was a fight to stop him in 2011 between Buenos Aires and SIDE and that is why the spy Pedro "Lauchón" Viale was assassinated years later. Who thinks they gave him up to be caught?
-Nobody gave me away. I did everything I could to get them to stop me. I am going to tell you one thing to make this clear, because there are many rumors, many things are said: I wanted to introduce myself but there was an order from above that they had to grab me, for good or otherwise. If they had to kill me, they had to kill me. That was the order above.
Former SIDE agent Pedro "Lauchón" Viale.
-Who are you talking about when you say "up"?
-I would like to know. I spoke to the police officers, I spoke to the commissioners and they told me that everything was like this: there was no way to make an arrangement, nothing. They wanted me dead or alive.
-And what do you think of Viale's death (assassinated by the Falcon Group in July 2013)?
-There is talk of a pica between Buenos Aires and SIDE, and the pica was always. The Police always handled bribes. The arrangements are everywhere, in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Chascomús, La Plata. You don't have to be blind: if you bribe yourself, if you fix yourself, if you do what you have to do. And SIDE also fixes, DEA fixes ... everyone fixes. If the buchón serves, they cover it, but they send it in gray. What can happen between the crop, the loopholes, the drug traffickers, the thieves ... everything today is fixed. And as for Viale, if there was a death it is because there was something ... it is not that a death is free huh. This is real. And if they had wanted to take care of it, they would have taken care of it. It's easy huh, it's not the end of the world.
EMJ