Miguel Angel Apablaza Suarez
Last Wednesday night, from the prison of Puente Alto, in the south of Santiago de Chile, a 24-year-old criminal, Miguel Ángel Apablaza, nicknamed the Negro Chico, executed an unusual robbery of the Ministry of Social Development of the Chilean Government, led by Giorgio Jackson, the main political ally of President Gabriel Boric. He did it with the help of two mobile phones – commonly used in the country's prisons – and with the classic uncle's story: he pretended to be the minister himself, confused with calls to his interlocutors, two security guards of the building, and managed to get 23 laptops, a safe and other items that were in Jackson's own office from the ministry.
In an operation that lasted three hours, between 20:30 p.m. and 23:30 p.m., three other criminals who worked together with Apablaza freely traveled through this central ministry, highlighting the ease of violating the security of some of the Chilean public departments.
The details of the robbery have been known on Friday afternoon at the control after the statement of two of the people who participated in the operation: Apablaza himself – who is already imprisoned – and his 60-year-old grandmother, Elena Rojas, who received the computers and was under house arrest, as requested by the Prosecutor's Office.
Giorgio Jackson Drago, Minister of Social Development and Family.ANDRÉS PÉREZ CUENCA (MIDESOF)
According to the prosecutor's account, on Wednesday night there were two security guards at the entrance of the ministry, located on the central Cathedral Street. It was a guard surnamed Lazo, 61, one of the workers of the private security company HM, who answered the call to the landline of the wallet, at about 20.30. He was a man who identified himself as Minister Jackson, who reported having suffered an accident in the southern area of Santiago de Chile, in the municipality of San Bernardo, so he needed help with a tow truck to get his car.
The alleged minister explained that he did not want his wife to find out what happened – Jackson is not married or has children – so he preferred that the communication was through a mobile phone and through WhatsApp. Lazo and his partner, surnamed Guzmán, convinced that they were talking to the minister, did not have this type of application on their own phones, so they looked for the cell phone of the security company they had in the ministry and gave him the number.
It was through a video call – where only the photograph of a man who was the same as Minister Jackson, with a cap and glasses – was seen where the imposter began to give orders to the two workers, who work at night. First, they removed 50 laptops from the different floors of the ministry. It was Guzmán who went up to the offices and, obeying the instructions of his interlocutor, the alleged Minister Jackson, took out the laptops that were tied with chains. He managed to collect 23 pieces of equipment and put them in two plastic and black garbage bags, which he asked one of the cleaning workers. At the time, according to the prosecutor, there were nine people working, including the two guards and the maid.
The guard put in the bags a medal and three pins that were in the minister's office. According to previous instructions, he was to take 15 medals out of the office.
The workers of the security company were ordered to open the ministry and deliver the bags to a driver who would come to pick them up. He was a driver of the Uber transport company, which had no relation to the crime, according to the prosecutor on Friday. He was the one who transported the computers to a street in the municipality of Renca, in the northern area of Santiago, where he was received by Apablaza's grandmother, an inmate who is serving a sentence for robbery until January 2027. The woman was accompanied by three other people, two men and one woman, and paid for the transport through a bank transfer from her personal account.
The criminal, always in his role as Minister Jackson and through the video call by WhatsApp, informed the guards that he would send some nephews to the ministry premises to fumigate the building. He clarified that they were "trustworthy." Then three men arrived dressed in white overalls and covering their faces with light blue surgical markings. They arrived at the building on Cathedral Street with a cargo car.
According to the instructions, before the fumigation the guards were to make sure to remove the safe located on the fifth floor of the ministry. And so they did. The box, according to the ministry, contained guarantee documents, checks and corporate bank cards, which have since been blocked.
The three criminals, whose faces were barely visible, according to the accounts after the prosecutor, covered the box with a garbage bag, put it in the cargo car and left in another car. There is no trace of them, nor of the safe deposit box.
It was a cleaner named America who became suspicious of the unusual movements in the ministry at night. He made different calls to the bosses of his cleaning company, who told him to call the Carabineros. America, in turn, began to alert the rest of the people who were in the building that they were being victims of a robbery. He did it with the guards themselves: "This is a scam," she told them. When the guard Guzmán received the alert, still in the video call, he told the supposed minister Jackson, who replied: "Look conchadetumadre, I shit you" and cut the call. It was about 23.30pm. Shortly afterwards the police arrived, because there is a police station very close.
Apablaza called his grandmother that same night and asked for photographs of the computer bags. He then ordered her to go to the same corner the night before the next morning and deliver the merchandise to another Uber car that would arrive to pick it up. She did not reach: two policemen arrested her and recovered the equipment. The woman, with a criminal record for drug trafficking, told the prosecutor that her grandson should have received orders. Prosecutors confirmed through her that the two numbers used in the robbery of the Ministry of Social Development – which has Chilean politics on fire – were from Anchelito, as the grandmother calls her imprisoned grandson.
A minister in the crosshairs
The crime has put the Boric government on the ropes and has had important political consequences. Jackson is one of the leaders and founders of the Democratic Revolution (RD) party, a political force of Boric's Broad Front that has been the epicenter of the so-called Conventions Case.
The plot that exploded last June refers to the investigations opened by the Chilean Prosecutor's Office for the transfer of millionaire state funds to non-profit foundations linked mainly to a party of the RD. The traditional right-wing UDI party – one of the most important of the opposition – has frozen this Friday the dialogue with the Government, as long as President Boric does not remove Jackson from his Cabinet. It does so in the midst of political negotiations for a tax reform and another of pensions, where the votes of the opposition are key, because the Executive does not have majorities in Congress.