He was sentenced to 5 years and 6 months in prison for raping a girl from 5 to 12 years old. But he never fulfilled it. He was released until the sentence became final. When a higher court upheld the ruling and they arrested him, he was gone. For Maximiliano José Espinillo (39) they offered 5 million pesos as a reward. Five years later and on the verge of expiring the deadline to arrest him, he was trapped in a tenement of Constitution.
The task to find Espinillo was not easy. He left so fast that at home he left abandoned even the car he used to work as a remis for an agency located in front of a shopping mall in Avellaneda.
In 2018, the woman who had dared to denounce him in 2010 and finally believed she had found a response from Justice eight years later, disseminated a desperate letter to request his arrest.
"In 2010 I dared to denounce before the Argentine justice MAXIMILIANO JOSÉ ESPINILLO, who sexually abused me from my five to my twelve years where I could tell it. I spent much of my adolescence with hospitalizations for suicide attempts and psychiatric and psychological treatments because of post-traumatic stress. When I managed to have the strength I denounced it. In 2015 I managed to take him to oral trial and that the oral court No. 3 of minors sentenced him to six years (...)".
Later, A.C., by its initials, asked: "I NEED PLEASE help me. I'm desperate. This person is DANGEROUS and I am AFRAID. Any information you have to provide me please write to me and SHARE. It moves through Avellaneda, Barracas, Constitución but can be at this moment anywhere in Buenos Aires, even some province. I need them to find him and be able to be at peace."
The flyer disseminated by the Ministry of Security, through the Official Gazette, to find Maximiliano José Espinillo.
In 2019, the Ministry of Security of the Nation requested a reward of $ 500,5 for anyone who provided information that would allow finding Espinillo, who had a national and international arrest warrant. That reward – devaluation through – was currently $<> million.
It is believed that during all this time Espinillo lived in the interior of the country, far from the places where he usually moved. So he sought to be off the radar of investigators until September, when the sentence expired. That motive also put pressure on the investigators of the Specialized Fiscal Unit in Complex Criminal Investigation (UFECRI), to whom the court that convicted the rapist entrusted the search. This prosecutor's office, led by José María Campagnoli, works in coordination with the Fugitive Search Division of the Federal Investigations Superintendence of the Federal Police and the Federal Unified Command for the Recapture of Escapees (CUFRE).
A health problem of a relative made Espinillo have to return to Buenos Aires. Time was running out and the search was intensifying. Also in the networks.
That's when the first alarm went off. An Instagram profile with a photo of the fans of the Club Atlético Independiente and the name "Pablo Emilio" (in clear allusion to the Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria) aroused the curiosity of the investigators who were attentive to the activity in networks of the environment of Espinillo.
From that account, with intelligence tasks, they arrived at an IMEI number – the one that identifies each cell phone – related to the fugitive. With strong indications that Espinillo was the account holder, they tracked the IP address, which marked a very specific area in Constitución.
In addition to technological tools, the police officers who followed the rapist used artisanal methods. So they watched him for several days until they located the place where he lived and his schedules. They also asked for the registration of guests of the place. When they began to count between the number of people coming and going and registered, they observed that "someone was left over."
On Tuesday, PFA agents saw Espinillo enter, who was short-haired and thinner than in the photos with which he was sought.
With the court order, police from special groups of the PFA first studied the place with a drone and then entered the room of the tenement that the rapist rented and surprised him when he was sleeping.
Espinillo received the sentence accused of having been the author of the crime of "aggravated corruption because she is a minor and through the use of threats, in ideal competition with aggravated sexual abuse for having configured a repeated seriously outrageous submission, causing serious damage to the physical and mental health of the victim."
Now he is housed in the Superintendence of Federal Investigations while waiting for the Court that requested his capture to designate a prison where he must spend the next few years.
MG