Crime DNA: union hitman wrote internal fight in the blood

Raúl Oscar Flores, alias “Coqui”, appeared before inmates of Piñero prison, near Rosario, as a hitman. For Justice, it was a hit man who was hired by three unionists from the truckers union to kill the Treasurer of the National Federation and the Secretary General of the Santa Fe region, Abel Beroiz.

Juan Carlos Dell’Arciprette, Alejandro Lázaro and Julio César Geréz, secretaries of the branches of San Lorenzo and Casilda and member of the regional office of Santa Fe, respectively, were sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the assassination of the second most important leader of the truckers’ union in the whole country, in the middle of a union internment.

Beroiz was killed by three bullets and seven stab wounds on November 27, 2007 in Garage 14 of the ACA parking lot in downtown Rosario. Next to the body, police found a piece of paper with the caption “80,000” and a photo of the union member. The attacker did not take the Longines watch that the trade unionist wore on his wrist. However, when the murder became public, union general secretary Hugo Moyano claimed that the federation’s treasurer was killed in a robbery. Three days later, she had to admit that she could be an intern in the Santa Fe area.

“Afterwards, I took a taxi to Corrientes and Pellegrini and got into Lázaro’s car. So Gerez told Lázaro that he had killed Beroiz. At this point, Lázaro and Gerez started to party. Lázaro turned around and said: “I congratulate you”. He was not alone. “Juancito” came with me and was the first to get off, near the mother’s house. Then they left me, ”Flores explained in one of her surveys. As part of a plan to kill Beroiz, the hitman summoned “Juancito”, a minor, blameless, due to his age. The two were to surprise the National Treasurer of the Truckers Union and pass off the attack as a homicide in an assault. But Beroiz resisted and “Juancito” stabbed him. Then Flores pulled out the .38 caliber revolver he was carrying around his waist and fired three bullets at the union member.

Beroiz did not die instantly. He was seriously injured in the gap between his blue Volkswagen Passat and a pickup. The union member died six hours later at Clemente Álvarez Emergency Hospital, due to the large amount of blood he lost.

During the process which ended with the convictions against the trade unionists, the sentencing judge, Carlos Carbone, ruled that Beroiz had been murdered following a trade union intern because the victim had discovered that Dell’Arciprette and Lázaro referred the trials to legal studies. bypassed truck drivers and union lawyers.

Called to the shooter

According to several witnesses who testified in the file, Dell’Arciprette, Gerez and Lázaro would benefit from the death of Beroiz, aligned with the assistant secretary, Raúl Luna. At the start of the investigation, the investigating judge, Osvaldo Barbero, ordered the arrest of Luna and her driver, Mario López. But two months later, they were both released. Luna and López arrived at the trial, free of charge. The sentencing judge, Ismael Manfrín, acquitted Luna and her driver for lack of evidence.

For Justice, Gerez, alternate member of the Santa Fe regional union, was the director who introduced Flores with Dell’Arciprette and Lázaro.

“When I got in the car, Gerez took out my cell phone and broke the chip. There they gave me money. They demanded that I take the money, it was $ 20,000. Less than the $ 80,000 they promised to pay me, ”Flores said.

According to the hitman, this phone, number 341-15684348, was given to him by “the principals” a week before the attack. After the murder, no more calls were recorded from said cell phone.

Gerez, Lázaro and Dell’Arciprette claimed that they were innocent, that they did not know the hitman and that they had been implicated by Flores, during an investigative statement in which the accused had no obligation to tell the truth.

But the defense arguments collapsed with the telephone crossings. According to the sentence, Gerez communicated fourteen times with Flores’ cell phone. On the day of the murder, which occurred a few minutes after 7 a.m., there were five calls from 5:12 a.m. to 8 a.m. While between the hitman and Dell’Arciprette, 33 communications were recorded between November 22 and 27.

Although he lived in Venado Tuerto, Beroiz, he traveled to Rosario every Thursday to develop his union activity. He also moved to Buenos Aires, to the headquarters of the National Federation of Truckers. “There are colleagues from other unions who have to justify several million pesos. Now I have a very complicated intern in my union. I live very calm with my conscience and I don’t want any problems, ”Beroiz confessed to a businessman at a meeting at the union office, in Caseros and Tacuarí, six months before the attack.

Beroiz, 71, was recognized and respected both in the truckers’ union and by other workers. During a visit to downtown Buenos Aires, he had been assaulted. Some of his relatives did not rule out the possibility that the attack was an act of intimidation.

Ambush

Beroiz changed his routine and returned to Rosario on a Monday, not a Thursday like he usually did. He arrived at the San Martín 2372 union office in Rosario on November 26 at 5.30 p.m. and left two and a half hours later. At 7:59 p.m., Lázaro received a 411-second call. His phone has been activated on the antenna installed in this area. For Justice, this communication marked the beginning of the criminal plan to kill Beroiz, as they indicated that the union member had retired. The next day, after spending the night at the Plaza Hotel, located at Maua n ° 26, next to the parking lot, Beroiz went to his Volkswagen Passat that he had left in garage 14 in the first basement.

It was 7:10 am when one of the parking attendants heard screams. He approached the garage and found a man stabbed by a boy. With the victim still standing, the second assailant took the gun, pushed Beroiz against the wall and pointed it at him. Almost at the same time, the assailant, later identified as Flores, noticed the worker’s presence, looked at him and shouted: “Go away because I’m burning you.” Flores later fired three shots at point blank range at the union member.

“I am convinced that Lázaro and Gerez were in the parking lot and saw it all. They wanted me to kill Beroiz and then assassinate me, so it would be like a robbery that ended in homicide, with the assailant dead, ”the hitman declared in court.

After killing Beroiz, Flores claimed the rest of the money promised for the unionist’s murder: $ 80,000 in total. So he sent Gerez two messages. “July. Make it short, come on. Raúl,” he told her in a message sent at 9:50 am the day after the crime. That day at 10:11 pm Flores insisted on the claim. Collect the money. I participated “.

In the absence of a response from the trade unionists who had hired him, Flores gave part of the $ 20,000 to his ex-partner and fled to Tostado, north of Santa Fe. The hitman was arrested in this town and transferred to Rosario In prison, Flores sent messages in which he threatened to speak. On March 3, 2010, during an escape allegedly planned by the trade unionists who hired him to kill Beroiz, the hit man fled Piñero prison. He took advantage of his work in the prison bakery to board the truck in which the bread made in the prison was transported. Fearing that he would be killed, Flores threw himself from Perón’s truck at 6700. He was a fugitive for six months until he was arrested again. “They threatened me from the union. That’s why I decided to come forward and provide more evidence on those who hired me to kill Beroiz, ”said the hitman, detailing the names of the intellectual perpetrators of the unionist’s murder.

More information