On March 10, 2023, Esteban Lindor Alvarado (44) – one of the heaviest drug traffickers in Rosario – was about to escape from the Ezeiza Penitentiary Complex by helicopter.
The plan was for the ship – bought by Alvarado in Spain especially for his escape – to get off at the pavilion's soccer field and take him to an unknown destination.
The plan was frustrated, but it showed as never before the
fragility of the Federal Penitentiary System
in the face of the economic power of drug traffickers: Alvarado had planned everything from illegal cell phones and took photos of key places in the prison thanks to a smartwatch that was later found half-buried. on the court
He had already advanced
50 thousand dollars out of a total of 100 thousand to the pilot.
For the "High Risk" prisoners – also called "High Profile" – Alvarado's frustrated escape marked a
before and after in their detention conditions
.
That same year, isolation measures began to be tightened for around twenty prisoners (mostly from Rosario) and a protocol for the most dangerous inmates began to be outlined, a protocol that came to light on January 23.
That day, resolution 2024/35 of the Ministry of National Security was published in the Official Gazette, creating the "Comprehensive Management System for High-Risk Persons Deprived of Liberty."
It was the final stitch to a work begun in the management of Juan Martín Mena as Secretary of Justice of the Nation and, in true Patricia Bullrich style, it began to be implemented at lightning speed.
Isolation and maximum control was an old demand of the Federal Courts of Rosario and the Drug Crime Prosecutor's Office (Procunar).
The protocol addresses many of its proposals although
it leaves aside, for the moment, an important one : the implementation of a
signal inhibitor
system
to prevent the use of cell phones inside prisons.
Faced with the new tightening of his confinement, Ariel "Guille" Cantero (35), leader of the violent Rosario gang of Los Monos, decided to take action and
resort to polyamory
.
Completely isolated since the end of 2021 – when he was accused of having a landline installed in his cell – Cantero broke records for originality.
In a presentation against agents of the Federal Penitentiary Service, delivered by his lawyers last weekend,
he declared himself bisexual and polyamorous
.
Cantero gave a list of girlfriends and boyfriends to the SPF to expand the number of his close contacts.
Photo Ale Bar
Sounds loud.
"'Guille' Cantero bisexual" (at least from prejudice): however, the move has as its background a strategy to circumvent Bullrich's protocol.
High-risk prisoners can only call three people
previously approved by Justice and the SPF
by landline .
They must all be from their closest environment and you can only talk to them for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon.
Software developed by the SPF's IT area (named after the prisoner who designed it) controls that the prisoner does not dial another number and, if he does, it interrupts communication.
Cantero's reasoning was simple:
the more sexual preferences, the more chances of expanding the list of close contacts
.
With his mother and his wife in house arrest, the leader of the Monos had notes for communications and visits with an uncle, an aunt and one of his children.
Now, in writing, he requested to add two girlfriends and a boyfriend.
According to sources consulted by
Clarín,
the attempt failed.
Inside the pavilion everything, outside the pavilion nothing
The protocol for "High Risk" prisoners – a 35-page document, to which
Clarín
had access – seeks to almost completely isolate the heaviest prisoners from their structures outside.
The reason: it is absolutely proven that they continue to control their businesses and even have people killed.
Esteban Lindor Alvarado, another of the most dangerous prisoners in the country who is under the new protocol.
For now the list of "High Risk Persons Deprived of Liberty" today has
180 names
.
Only 10 are women and among them is Lorena Verdún (44), widow of Claudio "El Pájaro" Cantero, whose crime at the hands of hitmen in 2013 unleashed a war in Rosario that has left
two thousand dead
.
Of the list of 180 names, only 55 men are currently living under the new rules.
Of them, 49 are distributed in four pavilions of Module 6 of the Ezeiza prison complex.
The idea is to take them to eight pavilions, occupying the area that in 2023 was used for inmates with mental problems.
In Ezeiza, for example, Esteban Lindor Alvarado, Miguel Ángel "Mameluco" Villalba (62), Raúl Maylli Rivera (43, alias "Dumbo") and Alionzo Rutillo Ramos Mariños (61 alias "Ruti"), to name a few, remained in the new regime. four heavy.
In the Marcos Paz Complex there are only six High Risk prisoners and they are all from Rosario.
The helicopter that was going to look for Alvarado at the Ezeiza prison.
Photo Ministry of Security
The System seeks to make changes by walking the
thin line between penitentiary control and the violation of Human Rights
.
An example: these prisoners are strictly prohibited from giving journalistic interviews.
Only time will tell how things work out.
For now, the heaviest prisoners who in 2023 used to spend
100 thousand pesos per week in the canteen
(a type of warehouse in each prison) will now only be able to buy weekly merchandise worth 15 thousand pesos.
"Sometimes there was so much merchandise in a prisoner's cell that it could not be seized," explained a source who, even so, acknowledged that 15 thousand pesos at today's inflation is almost nothing.
As for telephone calls, they were limited in time and destination.
Few people and little time.
Raúl Martín Maylli Rivera, better known as "Dumbo", accused of being the leader of a drug gang in the Padre Mugica neighborhood.
The protocol also focuses on penitentiaries and this is the most innovative thing.
It establishes a selection system for guards assigned to special wards (salary bonus included) and no longer requires them to wear their name on their uniform: this was replaced by an identification code.
In this way, the authorities argue, prisoners
can identify them in case of illegal restraint, but not know their name
.
"Not confined but isolated from the outside world," the Ministry of National Security insists on defining and they promise that prisoners will be able to study and work in the pavilions.
Of course, transfers will be almost impossible to achieve and visits – twice a week, only two hours, and only for immediate family – will be contact after undergoing a
body scan
.
Lawyers and family members who do not want to undergo X-rays will have to talk to the prisoner through a blindex.
Alionzo Rutillo Ramos Mariños, alias "Ruti", arrested in Peru in 2017.
For the Nation's Penitentiary Ombudsman – which for a year has been receiving the most varied complaints from prisoners – the power of the SPF to manage the list of "High Risk" inmates is
too discretionary
, since there are absolutely no guidelines. objectives to make the selection.
From Procunar – which works on the lines used by imprisoned drug traffickers – they continue
to demand the blocking of cellular signals
as a fundamental tool for the protocol to be effective.
Their arguments are strong: cell phones continue to be found and kidnapped even in the most controlled sectors.
On the night of February 9, the SPF kidnapped a cell phone that was inside a bucket in the SUM of one of the High Risk pavilions of the Ezeiza complex.
They also found a USB cable in the cell of Leandro "El Pollo" Vinardi, head of a faction of Los Monos.
Miguel Ángel "Mameluco" Villalba.
Photo Archive / Telam
Five days later, on February 14 – in a search carried out after a visit – a
mobile phone was found inside a jar of weed
belonging to René Guzman, a drug trafficker from Salta who was arrested in 2023 after shooting with the Gendarmerie using a machine gun.
The last serious episode: on Sunday the 18th, less than a week ago, the penitentiaries entered cell 9 of pavilion B of Module VI of Ezeiza and kidnapped Rosario drug trafficker Pablo Camino
a cell phone that he was hiding in the toilet
.
MG