The chief commissioner Luis Alberto Zaracho (39) was working as head of the Quilmes DDI until this Thursday, when he was arrested at his workplace in the framework of the investigation into the crime of Lautaro Morello (18) and Lucas Escalante (
26 )
, whose body has not yet been found.
Prosecutor Daniel Ichazo (UFI No. 1 of Berazategui) considers that this chief of the Buenos Aires Police is involved in the cover-up maneuver for which other members of the force are also imprisoned.
Lucas's family is still waiting for him.
There are plans for "when he returns", things that can be done upon his "return".
They know, in the privacy of their home, that after 139 days the chances of finding him alive are remote, but they still do the only thing they can do: wait.
Nothing was ever heard of him.
There is a reward of 5 million pesos for anyone who can provide information on his whereabouts.
He left on December 9 with his friend,
Lautaro Morello (18)
, who was murdered.
His charred body appeared in Guernica a week later.
Relatives, friends and neighbors of Lucas Escalante, the 26-year-old who is still missing, demand his "appearance alive".
Photo Telam
What happened that night is unknown, but it is not a mystery but rather a police cover-up plot that hindered the investigation.
"I don't know what's worse, if he's alive after all this time he's living hell because he's far from his family and he can't come back. If he's dead, it's also hell because we no longer have him with us," said Romina Escalante , his sister, to
Clarín
.
"Whatever it is,
this is hell for my family
."
The participation of the Buenos Aires company flew over the case, first because
the two main defendants are policemen
: Cristian and Maximiliano Centurión are in preventive detention as "
co-authors
" of the "
homicide qualified by cruelty and treachery
" of Lautaro and for the disappearance of Lucas.
They also arrested Sergio Argañaraz, commissioner of the 4th.
de Bosques, accused of "
covering up qualified because the crime was previously serious and because of his status as a public official in real bankruptcy with breach of the duties of a public official
."
Argañaraz, among other things, refused to receive the complaint from Lucas's mother for the disappearance to delay the investigation.
Ramiro Yair Forchinito (33), another Buenos Aires police officer who worked with Interpol along with Francisco Centurión, the father and uncle of the main defendants, spent a few days behind bars after they discovered that he falsified his statement by delivering a false cell phone to deny that he had been in a meeting with the Centurión the day after the crime.
Lautaro Morello and Lucas Escalante, the two youngsters.
four prosecutors
Four prosecutors went through the case: first, Mariana Dongiovanni, who apologized for the alleged pressure received from the Morello family and her lawyer, Diego Dieguez, known for defending police officers in different cases.
Then it passed into the hands of Martín Conde, who also decided to apologize for his labor ties with Centurión.
Finally it fell into the hands of Daniel Ichazo although, through the judicial fair, Barbara Velasco passed first, who - as soon as the fair was over - quickly delimited the investigation back to Ichazo.
In that hot potato that was the legal case, the Buenos Aires woman was also removed from the case after several meetings between the families of Lautaro and Lucas with the Minister of National Security, Aníbal Fernández.
Now she was in charge of the Federal, which managed to advance with key operatives and expertise.
Ichazo summoned the chief commissioner Daniel García to declare so that he could give explanations about the first movements of the investigation.
The head of the provincial force, far from providing information about the facts, tried to shift the focus of the investigation and spoke of a "
crime of passion
" to refer to Morello's death.
His hypothesis, as stated, is that Lucas and Lautaro had a relationship and that this led to death.
There is no other indication that marks the facts in that direction, they confided to
Clarín
.
This week Ichazo would also summon the regional superintendent of AMBA Sur, Javier Villar, to give explanations about his communications with Centurión and his intervention in the days after the crime.
What happened with Lucas and Lautaro?
According to the record and thanks to a series of audios provided by the Escalante family, on December 9 Lucas went to meet Maximiliano Centurión in a country house on Florencio Varela because he was going to give him gasoline vouchers.
“
I was going to stay at home, did you see?
But there is a chabón that gives me gasoline.
I have to go look for it to Alpino, a little further.
But hey...
free gasoline works
, ”he told Morello on Instagram to invite him.
The blue BMW in which Lucas Escalante went to look for his friend Lautaro Morello in Florencio Varela.
Thanks to the fact that Lucas told three different people what he was going to do, they reached the Centurion.
Security cameras and a neighbor confirmed the version: on December 9, 2022, the two young men met the two police officers for the transaction.
Lucas's blue BMW was also key: witnesses remembered him because of the vehicle.
The Escalante family will say that Lucas is "naive" and "trusting" for what he thought they were going to give him the vouchers.
For the investigators, he could have been a reseller of those tickets, one of the most historical and established corruption maneuvers in Buenos Aires.
what's next
The father and uncle of Maximiliano and Cristian Centurión is Francisco "Coco" Centurión, a senior commissioner who began his career in a Dangerous Drugs delegation and rose to be an Interpol liaison.
They suspect that he could have used his knowledge in the Florencio Varela area to cover up the crime of his son.
Last week, for the fourth time, a fifth of his property was raided.
It has at least one hectare with seven buildings that -curiously- had not been requisitioned during the first stage of the investigation.
In one they found
traces of blood
through a luminol expertise and kidnapped
charred items on a grill
.
Investigation sources confided to
Clarín
that the witnesses agreed that
on the day of the disappearance of Lucas and Lautaro there was a large bonfire there
.
A tall tree would have been hit by the flames and would prove the magnitude of that fire.
There they found remains that were kidnapped for further analysis.
The experts, the sources explained, took samples of the blood stains to be analyzed.
Whether or not prosecutor Ichazo requests the arrest of Francisco Centurión would depend on that result.
In the previous raids and while the Buenos Aires was in charge of the case, the police found excuses or impossibility to access all the properties and only now, with the intervention of the Federal, have they managed to enter.
Prosecutor Ichazo continued taking testimonial statements and they hope to carry out a new search in the area where Lucas Escalante's cell phone was detected for the last time.
A place that, curiously, had not been raked so far either.
"The magnitude of what is happening is not taken. Here
there is a disappeared person in democracy in the hands of the Police
and I feel that no one takes the dimension of what that means," Romina Escalante launches, overwhelmed by the lack of information about her brother.
"
We want to know where he is
. We want to find him. I can't tell you that I'm satisfied with the progress of the investigation because I'm missing my brother. Yes, we see that more things are being done but I love Lucas. Whatever, even if it's for being able to grieve, I don't know... but not knowing where he is is unbearable", he closes.
EMJ
look also
The million-dollar reward for data that allows finding Lucas Escalante, who has been missing since December 9, is increased
Death and mystery in Florencio Varela: the case went through 5 prosecutors and a young man still does not appear