Rosario is an anomaly,
a narco anomaly
.
Nowhere else in Argentina - and nowhere else in the province of Santa Fe - does what happens there happen.
And it is not that in the streets of the 14 neighborhoods where the drug problem is concentrated - according to the description of Mayor Pablo Javkin - an enormous amount of
cocaine or marijuana
is sold .
The problem is
violence
, deaths (almost 2,000 in a decade) and lack of control... a true monster that, after a relatively calm summer, has raised its head again in recent days.
Each and every one of the city's drug bosses - with
Ariel "Guille" Cantero (35), Esteban Lindor Alvarado (44), and Julio Andrés Rodríguez Granthon (30)
at the top of the list - have been in prison for years.
Their second and even third lines also fell, as did the leaders of other clans such as
the Ungaro, the Funes or the Pillines
.
Video
Documentary: Why does Rosario bleed?
One theory to explain the recent wave of homicides of innocents maintains that, as these bosses began to live under increasingly closed and isolated prison regimes,
they started a war with the authorities
.
And
his best weapon is to kill anyone
.
Without a reason, a logical order, a specific motive, how can we prevent the next hitman from fulfilling his mission?
There is no saturation of security forces that can cover the entire possible spectrum of victims, and retreating is not an option.
So perhaps the solution lies in understanding the "anomaly."
Because there are many ingredients in the recipe for the bomb that became the third most important city in the country.
The city of Rosario, on fire due to drug violence.
One of the protests after the crime of a taxi driver.
Photo: JUAN JOSE GARCIA.
From the place where Rosario is geographically located on the map of Argentina, to the criminal origin of many of the drug traffickers that terrorize it, through
a corrupt police force that is different from others, such as the Buenos Aires police
.
The elements to be analyzed are very varied, but they are all on the table.
Many of the drug traffickers with power in Rosario did not start their lives in drug crime, but with
assaults
.
The most emblematic case is that of Alvarado, who even today boasts of having robbed banks, armored vehicles, large supermarkets and set up luxury car wreckers.
These violent, "pipe" men eventually realized that
it was more profitable and less risky to sell cocaine
.
They changed jobs, they migrated, but the violence with which they used to rob was imported into the drug dealing business.
The last sending of federal forces to Rosario.
Photo: JUAN JOSE GARCIA.
Another factor to take into account is the self-interest of the drug bosses so that the market is not organized behind a single leader, which would end the war between gangs.
The Canteros, for example, support themselves through extortion ("
pay me or I'll shoot down your business
") and a franchise system: smaller groups, gangs, give them a tribute to be able to do something in their area of influence or use your name.
Order is not convenient for the bosses because, if there were, they would run the risk of being displaced.
That is why it is so important for them not to be isolated.
To control, orders must be given, either through visits or through cell phones illegally brought into the prisons.
The Santa Fe Police is also a distinctive factor to take into account.
Contrary to the Buenos Aires Police, which regulates the drug market above the gangs (giving a liberated zone for example), in Rosario
the Police began to integrate the gangs and be subordinated to them
.
The moment in which Bruno Bussanich (25) is executed by a hitman at a service station in Rosario.
An example: the Justice of Rosario verified over the years that the cases that the Judicial Division towards
Los Monos
were stoked by their enemy, Esteban Alvarado, who was allowed to work.
Rosario's financial system also collaborated for the drug trafficker who, although it may seem silly to say it, only sells drugs for the brutal profit margin it provides.
Full of dollars from soybeans and industrial activity, the drug traffickers' bills were mixed until they blended in with the legitimate profits of a thriving province.
This is within the framework of the enormous corrupting power of the drug trafficking business, which does not respect the division of powers.
I did not go
Always trying to bring grist to their mill, Rosario's drug trafficking bosses gave their explanation for the high level of violence in the
Clarín documentary
"Por qué Sangre Rosario"
released at the end of 2023 and whose objective was, precisely, to explain the phenomenon Rosario drug dealer.
"
The drug violence in Rosario will end when there is a single leader
, when there are no more disputes for power and only one takes control." said Peruvian Julio Andrés Rodríguez Granthon, imprisoned since 2019, sentenced to life and since January under the regime of high-risk prisoners in the Marcos Paz Penitentiary Complex II.
Video
"The Peruvian" Granthon is 30 years old, he is a civilian pilot and has controlled the cocaine market in Rosario for some time.
In this exclusive interview he reveals how the drug business works and his ties to "Los Monos."
Granthon brought 400 kilos of cocaine into Rosario and supplied 30 different gangs.
Those who investigated him believe he is capable of anything, including ordering a series of crimes to try to subdue the authorities.
"I don't know who said that
in Rosario it is easier to get a gun than a shovel
, and it's true. Today a kid prefers to have a gun and a motorcycle and play the hitman. It's fashionable and innocent people kill you," he told
Clarín
Esteban Lindor Alvarado, an example of what a "pipe" man was who was involved in the drug business.
Video
Esteban Lindor Alvarado: "I bought an escape plan. If I could have, I would go to hell."
"Of the 200 deaths this year (by 2023), for me 180 are innocent. They pay 30 thousand pesos and they kill a child, a pregnant woman, a grandmother. I was a thief, but a high-end thief, I never touched the neighborhood ", held.
And he rounded off: "There is talk of a drug war, but what is happening today in Rosario is that the kids want to be bosses. They want to appear, they become Tony Montana (Al Pacino's character in the movie Scarface) or Pablo Escobar."
Alvarado is imprisoned and isolated in Penitentiary Complex I of Ezeiza and knows what it means to generate terror to play the game: he even planned to throw the head of a horse in the house at a judicial official, but his messenger could only cut off the head of a dog.
Since this did not have the media impact he expected, he shot up the woman's house and almost killed her grandmother, who was sleeping in one of the rooms.
“I don't remember as many deaths as there are now... nor do I remember as many deaths that are involved in drugs.... because in Rosario there were always drugs, drugs were always sold, but I never saw this," he described to
Clarín
- as talking about a film in which he is only a spectator- Ariel "Guille" Cantero.
Video
The leader of the drug gang that is fighting for power in Rosario.
And he stated: “Chaos is created by those who want to create it, and by those who take advantage of it.
Rosario is small: it has five bridges, where a commando stops on each bridge, no one else passes."
EMJ