They discover a network of women trafficking between Paraguay and Chile via Argentine Patagonia.

The presence of gendarmes in a routine check on National Highway 3 in Chubut was the spark that the girl needed to overcome her fear and denounce the fact that she had been taken without her consent and for unknown purposes. . This first step was the prologue of others that allowed us to start unveiling the activities of an international network dedicated to human trafficking. Initial investigations indicate that the organization captured young women in Paraguay and took them to the confines of Chile via Argentine Patagonia.

As confirmed by official sources
THE NATION, agents of the
Gendarmerie captured at
Chubut to two members of this group dedicated to the
trafficking and exploitation of women and saved four victims. The data obtained after the operation have corroborated that the criminal group operates in the
City of Buenos Aires and Bahía Blanca, but also Paraguay and Chile, in the localities of Caaguazú and Punta Arenas, respectively.

On Saturday the 12th of this month, as members of the "Section Vial Trelew" were reviewing a long-distance bus that had held back a few minutes ago in a desolate location near Route 3, one of the victims could no longer stand the pressure and began to cry. "Under the control of the documents, a very nervous woman said that she did not know where they were taking her," said Commander General Manuel Caraballo, chief of the gendarmerie in the area.

The four victims – captured in Paraguay – were sheltered under the protected witness system, while the investigation is being conducted by the Rawson Federal Court No. 2, whose leader is Gustavo Lleral, responsible for the investigation. death investigation. of Santiago Maldonado, militant of the Mapuche cause, drowned in the river Chubut, in the Lof de Cushamen, on August 1 of last year, while he was trying to escape from the gendarmerie during the expulsion of an Aboriginal picket on Highway 40.

New data

"This organization transferred its victims with a post system and used different people on each trip.The four victims we saved were captured by people from their own communities who offered them fictitious jobs. would be delivered for the purposes of prostitution or bonded labor, "said Caraballo.
THE NATION.

The gendarmerie noted that the badysis of the phones seized during the operation generated important data for the investigation. The woman who accompanied the four victims called Liliana Alcaraz and remains in detention. An alleged accomplice was delayed and released, although related to the judicial process.

At present, the main suspects identified are all Paraguayan citizens, but federal agents also follow in the footsteps of some Argentines who would be part of the criminal group.

In addition, Major-General Caraballo said he was working in coordination with the Chilean Investigative Police (PdI), which is currently monitoring specific targets in the south of Punta Arenas.

Between 2008 and 2018, according to official information provided by the prosecutor's office, 564 people were sentenced to 217 sentences. In 77% of criminal cases, criminal organizations captured people to exploit them badually and it is estimated that at least 82% were women. Mar del Plata, Córdoba, Buenos Aires and Comodoro Rivadavia are the districts with the highest number of cases.

Moreover, according to the official statistics of the Ministry of Justice of the Nation, in the first half of 2018 – the latest statistics available – 624 victims (including 29 minors) were saved, bringing to 12,477 the number of people less control of organized criminal organizations that have been released by federal agents.

Confirmation of Argentine judicial investigators specializing in human trafficking
THE NATION Punta Arenas is a city that offers many bad trade offers and noted that it was not the first time they detected an organization that displaced women in this southern Andean city.

Traffic in Punta Arenas

The NGO Raíces, a civil society organization that has been designing and implementing public policies to combat human trafficking for 20 years in Chile, explained to
THE NATION what is the situation of Punta Arenas.

Monserrat Millán, leader of Roots in the south of the neighboring country, explained: "In Punta Arenas, but generally throughout the Magallanes region, there is a" floating "population of workers who arrive by season" and feed the favors the prostitution. "There is a need to educate citizens, because here all the risk factors converge for there to be commercial badual exploitation of older women and minors".

Millán coordinates in Punta Arenas activities in a detention center for 45 girls and adolescents who are victims of badual exploitation for commercial purposes. About the evolution of this crime in this region, he pointed out that not only do they worry about the existence of a nightclub circuit related to prostitution, but that They have also begun to detect – at least in the last two years – cases of women and children under 18 years of age who are exploited by tourists and workers in the area no longer in whiskeys. or cabarets, but in hidden places.

On this last modality detected, Millán concluded: "They are captured through social networks and also in the streets by people who use, among other things, the situations of violation of the rights or drug addiction that these young people undergo".