Hernán Matías Sánchez (27) couldn't stop crying.
He testified and heard in detail the accusation against him:
extortionate kidnapping aggravated
by having been committed with three or more people, because
the victim was a minor
and because the ransom payment was made.
The minimum sentence he faces is 10 years in federal prison.
Neither a powerful leader of a gang of kidnappers, nor a skilled fugitive from justice.
Sánchez sold iPhone brand cell phones and they believe that this could have been the origin of
a revenge
that, clumsily executed, ended up in the hands of Federal Court No. 1 of Lomas de Zamora, headed by Ernesto Kreplak.
On Saturday, Sánchez had dinner with Florencia, his partner, at a restaurant in Puerto Madero.
They were celebrating Valentine's Day while agents of the Federal Police were waiting for them a few meters away: they let them enjoy the food but, upon leaving, they took him into custody.
He had been a fugitive since 2022, shortly after
LM (17)
reported the kidnapping of which he had been a victim.
It was not after paying, but because of the
threats that he began to receive
.
Kidnapping
On Sunday, May 22, 2022, LM went out with his friends, like every weekend.
He was the one who loaded gas into the cars they used and the one who reserved the tables at the bowling alley on duty.
That day San Telmo was the chosen destination.
He was a fugitive for the kidnapping of a 17-year-old teenager and had escaped to Brazil.
He fell in Puerto Madero when he was having dinner with his girlfriend for Valentine's Day.
LM had the money to pay the expenses of that night in a house in Avellaneda:
$450 thousand to "burst"
.
At that meeting, LM was with his usual friends and they had been joined by Bruno Lado (24), a young man who worked as a delivery for an application.
The group drove in a gray car to Lado's house so he could "change his clothes."
Two more friends joined.
Something happened in the middle: a
black Renault Clio
surrounded them and three men got out.
At the wheel was Hernán Sánchez.
“We are from the Lomas Brigade
,” they said and said that they were looking for “a certain Juli” for “the crime of fraud.”
The victim asked for a court order which, of course, they did not have.
His former friend, Lado, recommended that he go.
She encouraged him to accept.
They told him that the destination was the Lomas de Zamora police station.
But once he got up, he discovered that it was all a lie.
"At that moment, one of the subjects who was holding him told him that he should
contact a family member to ask for money in exchange for his release
," the court file indicates.
They asked him, exactly, 450 thousand pesos
.
The same ones they knew he had in the LM department where they were doing "the preview."
LM called another friend who was at home and asked him to come down with the ransom.
But when they had the money in her possession, it seemed insufficient to them.
"The perpetrators of the incident began to argue among themselves because they wanted to ask for more money and, at that moment, the teenager told them that – if they released him – within the week he would give them one million more pesos," explained sources with access to the file.
Before releasing the victim, his kidnappers stole an iPhone 13 Pro-Max and a watch.
About 20 minutes after the kidnapping, they released him in Bouchard and Güemes, in Gerli, Avellaneda district.
"We are going to empty a magazine for you at the door of your house"
“
Hello L. We just wrote to you but from what we see you have not recovered the line, we are waiting for you to keep your word because we are going to keep ours, if not,
how and when are you going to pay us?
Once you do it, we're going to leave the phone at the door. Are we?
”, they wrote in a first message from an Instagram account.
“Look at what you are going to do, we want to solve things as soon as possible or
we are going to empty a charger at the door of your house
, you pay us and you will be able to return to your peaceful life, if you do not pay us you will have a hard time.” bad for you and your family
” and “
we were good to you, we didn't touch you, don't make us angry.
I await your response
”, was the next message.
The car in which Hernán Sánchez moved on his return to the country.
The intimidation did not stop, and two days later the violence grew: "
So you're a crook and you don't pay us? Do you know what the money is going to be used for? For the wheelchair you're going to stay in. In These days we
are going to enter your house and break your bones
and on top of that you are going to have to transfer everything for stupidity
(…)", they continued.
They also gave signs of being under surveillance of their house, due to other details of the threats: "
He who warns does not betray (...) look, I will dismantle the two bars you have in a second with hydraulics (...) you lowered the blinds early today ( …) we went to look at you for a little while (…) start thinking that
what you have to give us are days of the scams that you do
(…) is that why are you going to have your family tied up in front of you? (…) If not tomorrow I have an answer, we will no longer negotiate, last warning (…) Poor old lady, you know how bad she is going to have it
,” they told her.
These messages scared the kidnapping victim, who alerted her mother and they filed a formal complaint.
Suspicions immediately fell on his group of friends because there were several alerts.
The kidnappers knew his name, the exact route the victim took and the amount of money he had in her house.
They also knew about his social networks and that
he handled a lot of cash that he could not justify
.
All these signals led to the investigation by federal prosecutor Sergio Mola in Lomas de Zamora and the Special Prosecutor's Office for Extortionate Kidnappings (Ufese), led by Santiago Marquevich, Ignacio Rueda and with the intervention of Juan Francisco Bonetto's secretariat.
The escape
Bruno Lado was the first to fall.
He is one step away from the trial that is about to begin.
He faces a
minimum sentence of 10 years
, which will be effective.
He is imprisoned at the disposal of a Federal Oral Court of La Plata.
He has a
history of attempted robbery in 2021
, in La Matanza.
The sentence was one and a half years of suspended prison, which will be added to what the judge applies.
His partner, Sánchez, managed to escape.
The black Clío that he used to commit the kidnapping was in the name of his father-in-law, a City Police Officer.
Federal Police investigators detected the IP number of a Sánchez computer when tracking threats against the victim.
He was surrounded.
First he traveled to Misiones and from there to Brazil.
He worked in a laundry and returned after his mother died.
"I didn't want my mother to see me in prison," she apologized.
As confirmed by PFA sources,
he entered through an irregular route
back to Buenos Aires.
And he hid in the La Costa Party.
Sánchez continued as a couple with Florencia, the daughter of the former Buenos Aires police officer.
Their social networks were the key for the PFA to find them at the weekend.
Valentine's dinner at Puerto Cristal, a restaurant in Puerto Madero, was the key.
The photos on social networks located them in the City and the romantic evening ended in arrest.
He had a "large amount of cash and an ID in the name of his brother, with whom he had a great physical resemblance," the sources explained.
At the investigation he decided to testify: he gave an unverifiable version of the event and said that the other two occupants of the car, whom he could not identify, "deceived" him.
He said that he went to look for "an iPhone to sell" and that he "suddenly came across a kidnapping."
Since his story "is not verifiable", he can only wait for the trial.
MG