It was in 2003, or 2004, no one can specify, and
Los Monos were not yet Los Monos
.
Just a group of four friends, led by
Claudio "Pájaro" Cantero
(he would be assassinated in 2013), who had the goal of
winning over the fans of Rosario Central to get out of poverty
and change their lives as petty criminals.
Failing to achieve the objective,
they modified the plan
: they began with different activities, such as the collection service for delinquent debtors, scams with loans that they requested and did not repay in non-bank financial entities and "carancho" type accidents, organized by a lawyer.
Until someone
came up with the idea that would make them millionaires
: "And if we start asking drug dealers for money? If everyone is afraid of us...".
To start in that area,
they needed weapons
.
They didn't have one.
They also didn't know people willing to sell to them.
They were still not "Los Monos" and Rosario was not the Rosario of today, which
has already exceeded 60 deaths so far this year
and in 2022 registered 287 murders.
For that reason they planned a robbery at an armory in the center of the city.
It was
the first big hit for the gang
, who escaped with more than 20 pistols.
"That robbery existed," confirms a second source close to the Cantero family.
And he clarifies: "What happens is that at that time the contacts and routes that there are today to get weapons did not exist.
For several years there has been no need to rob an armory
".
Nearly two decades after that armory robbery,
Rosario is full of weapons
that are stolen, or bought, or seized in raids and resold, or that disappear from judicial warehouses, or that are exchanged for drugs.
In the local jargon they are called "pico"
;
It is common to hear drug traffickers say "bring the 'picks'" or "I'm needing a couple of 'picas'. Do you have them?"
And they are the same ones that are used in
every homicide, attempted homicide and shooting
in front of houses every day.
"Every week they offer you weapons. There are many going around. If you walk in this environment you will find people who want to sell you and people who want to buy you," explains a person from the criminal world.
From what
Clarín
was able to find out , during a tour that included interviews with drug traffickers, lawyers and former drug chiefs of the Police, there are
two large arms routes that are triggered in Rosario
.
The wholesale and retail route
The wholesale route is
Paraguayan
.
More precisely from Ciudad del Este.
Those who know the most about the subject detail that the contacts are in one of the gated communities in the area.
They are long arms dealers who supply the Brazilian and Argentine markets, to a much lesser extent.
The other option is drug traffickers of the same nationality, who are dedicated to sending shipments of marijuana to the main centers of Argentina.
They also offer
rifles and machine guns to their colleagues from Rosario
.
"You have to get there. Then the Paraguayan sends your order to Argentina.
They do it on rafts, via the Paraná River
. And many organizations hire the service of carriers, who are in charge of the logistics: transport by road to Rosario" , says a detective who investigated the route for years.
The marks of the bullets in a shooting at a health center, in February.
Photo Juan Jose Garcia
A person with contacts with arms dealers and large organizations in Rosario adds: "You buy them, you offer them double to those drug traffickers and they take them out of your hands. It is the dream
of
any of them. They use them to demonstrate power of fire, to be able to say 'Look what I threw at you'".
On some occasions they demonstrate that power with videos that they themselves record,
showing themselves with rifles and shooting into the sky
.
The
retail route
is local, and it is for small arms.
"They are offered to you by the same police who steal them in raids, or the police who take it from a criminal on the street. They know that they sell it at the moment and that for a 9-millimeter pistol they earn between 250,000 and
300 thousand pesos
", says one of those consulted by
Clarín
.
He adds that there are also thieves, the kind that enter to rob houses when their owners are not there, who sell them to drug traffickers.
Or the drug traffickers themselves, to make a difference between the purchase and the sale.
There are many causes that confirm the
version of policemen who supply the black market
of arms.
Just to cite two examples: in September 2022, Víctor Maldonado, a police officer from the Criminal Investigation Agency (AIC), was accused of selling a 6.35 caliber pistol that he stole in a raid in July 2020. Juan Carlos Belotti, from the AIC Ballistics section, was more ambitious: they charged him with the theft of 10 weapons and 107 ammunition.
It was in April 2022.
The ammunition business
The
ammunition business
is from the city armories.
"The projectiles go to the black market in a very simple way," explains a man from the Agency for the Prevention of Violence with Firearms (APVAF).
And he details: "The gunsmith is going to offer the registered and trusted customer a discount on a box of ammunition in exchange for
signing in the book of operations that he took two or three boxes
."
Illegal customers
of gunsmiths
buy loose shells or boxes.
Of course: the price is much more expensive.
"They ask you 2,000 pesos for a projectile," says one of their clients.
The box of 50 of a 357 Magnum revolver, for a registered customer, is 16 thousand pesos.
For the unregistered, who in most cases is usually a drug trafficker, it would cost, at a rate of one thousand per unit,
100,000 pesos
.
The APVAF source recalls that in an inspection of a city armory, more than 500,000 ammunitions were seized than allowed.
Each business, when authorized by the local control authority, is authorized to have a certain amount of weapons and projectiles.
Many merchants exceed that number, and are closed.
“Black market ammunition is a huge business that nobody talks about
,” the source concludes.
In recent years there have been several raids on armories in the city and inland Santa Fe, with arrests and seizure of merchandise.
Bullet marks on the car of a 52-year-old businessman who was killed earlier this month.
Photo Juan Jose Garcia
"The narco is always going to be willing to buy
," explains another source from the world of crime.
And it is common for them to offer the
complete combo
: with ammunition boxes or even with a silencer included (they ask 100 thousand pesos more for it).
“You have to stock up because
at any time you may need them
.
And you won't have time to get one when you have a problem or find out that they're looking for you”.
These weapons are generally
used only once
.
Either for a homicide or a shooting attack.
"Dogs" they call them.
Then they'll get rid of them.
The most common is that they sell them.
There are buyers who do not arrive with cash and make offers such as "I'll give you a gold ring, a Play Station and 100,000 pesos."
Others do it as an investment: buy cheap and resell it on the spot and maybe make $100.
If it's a gun.
Whoever resells a rifle or a machine gun
can earn 3,000 or 4,000 dollars in the transaction
.
"In Rosario there are no people who are exclusively dedicated to selling you weapons. The one who offers them to you is generally from the environment: he is a
thief or a drug trafficker
," says one of those consulted.
Vendors who supply consumers in middle-class neighborhoods often receive orders from their clients, who assure them that they want them "because of insecurity
.
But the criminals who buy guns don't keep them under the mattress, as shown in the movies.
How do they know that their homes are likely to be raided?
Each gang has a person in charge of hiding them
.
“It has to be someone with no criminal record.
He is paid like
rent
: you leave him between 50,000 and 100,000 pesos in exchange for keeping a bag of weapons in his house”, they say during the investigation.
And in those bags, hidden in those houses, there are surely the weapons that will be triggered in the crimes of the coming weeks, months and years, and that up to now no one knows
how to stop
.
Rosary beads. Special delivery
look too
The watch buried in the prison field, a European helicopter and 100 thousand dollars: the keys to the failed escape of a Rosario drug lord
Santa Fe: a man who was riddled with bullets died in another night of terror
