Human Trafficking in Argentina: the road for Senegalese glasses sellers turned into slaves

For the first time, Justice has pursued and jailed a network of Senegalese who operate in Argentina for the crime of human trafficking. The victims were their own compatriots.

They were about 80 in total. Deceived and under the commitment to pay nearly 6,000 USD and after a long and tiring journey – which included bribes, false pbadports and even crossings of border rivers – illegally entered the country to be exploited.

The victims, far from receiving the promised work in companies, hotels and restaurants, were forced to sell illegal goods in street stalls, receiving nothing until the debt to the traffickers was paid back.

So much so that in one of the twelve raids ordered by the federal judge Marcelo Martínez De Giorgi, investigators from the special investigation unit of the Argentine Federal Police have found hidden in the home of the gang leader of the mafia some 61 falsified pbadports of Senegalese citizens smuggled into Argentina through the borders with Brazil.

Eleven other victims were rescued while they were exploded in the itinerant stands of the localities of Flores and Liniers or in provinces like Misiones.

The victims were those who allowed to disrupt the mafia group thanks to the legends what they did in the first person The cause reveals the reality of slavery of the modern era: Argentina is a group of human traffickers.

Patricia Bullrich, Minister of National Security, in dialogue with Infobae recognized that "this is a very important achievement for us because it is the first case in Argentina where Senegalese end up being tried and remanded for the crime of human trafficking"

The false promise of being a refugee

The investigation, as described by Martínez De Giorgi, began with a complaint filed on February 14, 2018 by the Deputy Director of the National Directorate of Migration and President of the National Commission for Refugees (CONARE), the lawyer Julián Curi.

In front of the CONARE, Five Senegalese claiming refugee status were reported in very detailed detail the maneuver by which they penetrated irregularly on the national territory with the logistical support of the transnational organization having bases in Argentina.

They were first contacted in Dakar, capital of Senegal, by an accomplice of the group. The promise they received was that once we entered our country, in addition to work – thanks to which they would quickly repay the economic debt to the criminals – would get through their contacts be considered refugees and shortly thereafter, they would get the precious certificate of precarious residence, which never happened.

Before leaving their country, each of the Senegalese received aFalse pbadport of the Republic of Gambia, West African countries.

The departure of Senegal is done with these difficult pbadports. There was a tour This pbadport was the gateway to Latin America: Gambian citizens can enter Ecuador without a consular visa. Ecuador, however, was the first of many stops for future slaves after leaving the African continent.

Ibou Diagne was the Senegalese "representative" of the head of the organization in Argentina, accused of having demanded from each of the "recruits" the sum of 2,700,000 CFA francs At current currency $ 4,617- an unpayable figure for poor men who were looking for a happy future in America.

He also asked for four photos and the Senegalese pbadport. They did not know, but this document I was going to be restrained when I entered Argentina until I paid the debt.

All the necessary was given to another member of the organization, identified in the case under the name of Aliou Djigo.

A camp in the jungle: the map of human trafficking

After four months of waiting, Ibou Diagne, the right arm in Senegal of the leader of the illicit badociation in Argentina, announced to the victims that the trip to the country of Lionel Messi began.

They first went to the city of Dakar. They received the fake pbadport from the Republic of The Gambia, the reservation of a hotel in the city of Quito, in the Republic of Ecuador and 200,000 CFA – about 342 dollars – that They had to deliver to the police at Dakar airport to "check" without inconvenience

"When I left Senegalese territory, I thought I would go straight to Argentina but it was not like that", one of the victims entrusted to the head of the National Commission for Refugees and that Martínez De Giorgi added to the case.

The Senegalese, who in this case spoke on condition of identity, also He said that at Dakar airport, he had learned for the first time that his first destination was Ecuador.

"At the moment the representative -the trafficker who lived in Bahía Blancam & said that I had to tell the immigration authorities that my final destination was Brazil, not Argentina. and that in Ecuador, there would be someone who was going to receive me. "

"I saw a person of that nationality on a placard bearing my name. He took me to a hotel, took a picture with my cell phone and gave me a ticket with a destiny for my stranger and who could not read. He also asked me for a sum of money that he had not and did not I gave him only six hundred dollars"He continued.

Later, always in the first person and by a French translator -c & # 39; is the official language of your country, although it also dominated the most popular language of Senegal, Wolof-specified that the next day, "I got into a microphone and I undertook a day and a half trip to a city called Napolitanowho, after learning, is the border with the Republic of Peru.

"When I got off the bus, I did not know where I was nor where I had to go. I stayed 15 minutes until a person from the place appeared, showing me from the cell phone the picture taken before and I wonder if it is me. When I said yes, he got me into a car and took me to a house. "

Upon entering the house, the man was found other Senegalese citizens who would also be victims of trafficking in Argentina but that before would go through Brazil. Or at least that's what they told him. But shortly after my return to the road, I would understand that there was still a lot of distance to go until you reach the promised land.

"In the residence, we stayed for about thirty minutes until another person, also from Ecuador, picked us up with a 4 × 4 truck. "

"We moved to the outskirts of Napolitano. We met another person who asked us for money to cross a river by boat. Since none of us had anything to give him, we had to cross the river on foot and sometimes swim. They told us that it was an uncontrolled border crossing. "

"Once we cross the river, all wet and hungry, another person who accompanied us to a cabinWe did not wipe when several men on motorbikes came, they were Peruvians. They took us to another place where there were more citizens of my country"

Without any rest, the traffickers took the large group of Senegalese to another bus terminal where they had pbadages to the city of Lima.

As they climbed in a caravan towards the future slaves of globalization, another member of the group I photographed them one by one.

From Lima, another bus left them in Cuzco. Then, Some of them had fallen ill, they needed water or food. But they did not have a dollar on them and the other pbadengers, far from helping them, they despised them.

Already in Cuzco, the "historic" capital of Peru, another of the criminals checked the face of the Senegalese with the photos I had received from Lima.

The victims protested when they learned that after a modest meal served in plastic dishes; They had to attack a new transport that would take them to Puerto Maldonado, a city located in southeastern Peru.

After a long wait, they were approached by a taxi driver who said "He was in charge of taking the Senegalese."

With no other option, and already resigned by the will of their recruiters, they were housed in a modest house and then in a hotel.

The next morning, Piled in a dilapidated utility vehicle, they used dirt roads and wells to travel to San Francisco, one of the border cities of Brazil.

Without going through migratory control, they went to Río Branco, the capital of the state of Arce, in northern Brazil and one of the entrances of the Amazon jungle.

The witness, with tears in his eyes, told the Argentine authorities he was denied refugee status, among others because of their illegal entry into the country for two days "We were in a place like a dense jungle and they called" the Senegalese camp ".

From that moment, the victim is separated from the rest since some would remain forced labor for Brazilian sawmillsand others, apparently, they would only arrive at Misiones where they would serve as manteros for the organization.

However, he went into the micro-city in the city of San Pablo, from there to Curitiba and Baracao.

In this city, the one who received it dialed a number on the cell phone. On the other hand, the voice of Nar Dieng, a naturalized Argentinian living in Bahia Blanca for 17 years and to which Judge Martínez De Giorgi was prosecuted and jailed at the head of an illicit badociation that was the subject of illegal trafficking in persons.

I also badign charges of contraband goods and counterfeit marks.

The National Investigations Directorate, in charge of Rodrigo Bonini, worked alongside the court to dismantle the mafia. Bonini pointed out before a consultation of Infobae Team work and "The multidisciplinary approach to fight organized crime".

"Federal Justice and the different federal agencies involved in the investigation successfully identified and dismantled the local phase of a transnational network dedicated to the trafficking of immigrants, but also to its logistics system and the distribution of illegal goods, "said Bonini.

Illegal arrival in the country

After several conversations with his compatriot in Argentina, the victim told the judge: "Nar Dieng told me that a taxi would pick me up in Baracao", which happened almost two hours later later.. They took me to a house and from there, in another car, they went through a border post without immigration control. to the city of Eldorado, to Misiones. "

A day later, the Senegalese finally approached the long-distance bus which, almost thirty hours later, deposited it in the Retiro terminal.

Already in the presence of the head of the organization, the man arrived from Senegal asked for his original pbadport. Nar Dieng, in French, responded with a sentence that he would not forget: "You are still in Senegal, you will not have your pbadport before paying off the debt". His misfortune, like that of nearly a hundred Senegalese victims of trafficking and identified by the Martínez De Giorgi court, was just beginning.

His testimony and that of eleven others who testified before the magistrate resulted in the decapitation of the Senegalese smuggling ring, with part of the illegal sale of stolen and counterfeit goods. places like Bahía Blanca, Eldorado, Mar del Plata, Monte Hermoso and the city of Buenos Aires.

Trout goods valued at over two million pesos have also been seized and an investigation is still ongoing. the figure of a "Fernando"who would "employee or official of the National Directorate of Migration" with whom the chief of the Senegalese mafia had conversations.

In addition to Nar Dieng, the judge tried and pronounced the dismissal of Amar Dieng, brother of the previous one, who helped to transfer the victims of Misiones to Buenos Aires; and of Ibrahima Alpha Djigo, responsible for the illegal pbadage of Senegalese from Brazil.

In the lawsuit, the judge pointed out as aggravating factors that the gang deals with people doing it "through the use of fake documents of different nationalities to obtain an economic benefit; aggravated by the economic needs of the victims in their country of origin, added to the inexperience and ignorance of these on the regulation of immigration and the Castilian language"

The ongoing investigation of Judge Martínez De Giorgi only reveals a truth rarely recognized publicly: the scourge that they live migrants who are deceived and exploited by transnational mafias.

The Secretary of the Security of the Nation, Eugenio Burzaco, said on this subject: "We are working very hard in this problematic of modern slavery. Currently, all over the world, we belong to category 1, which includes countries that fully comply with the standards. for the eradication of human trafficking "and he added:" This effort has enabled us to recover many people subjected to different practices of human trafficking and trafficking for badual purposes ".

Minister Bullrich, for his part, acknowledged that "these three years of management have disrupted many drug gangs and seized large quantities of dogas". This time after an excellent investigation, a gang of Senegalese immigrants who have trafficked of his own nationality "and recalled that the work of the court and the national security forces" has been a long one a lot of dedication since it was a very large network in our country where they had such an organized system that they even gave them false documents. "