Just on the same day that President Boric announced the call for consultation of the Chilean ambassador in Venezuela, upset by the denial by the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, of the existence of the Aragua Train (TDA), the apprehension and detention control of three subjects who according to the police participated in the homicide of Carabineros lieutenant Emmanuel Sánchez, murdered last night in Quinta Normal, who – according to sources close to the case – would be linked to different degrees with “The pirates of Aragua ”, as ADD is now called.
In this sense, there is intelligence information previously handled by Carabineros that points in this direction, but there are also several other indications that point in that direction.
In particular, as indicated to The counter sources linked to the case, the mode of operation of the subjects who acted the night before is typical of “The Pirates of Aragua” and it is not an act exclusive to Chile, but rather a way of operating that the TDA implemented at the end of last year, when it began to act in cities in the United States. United like New York, where one or two guys on a motorcycle steal their cell phones from passers-by. However, these are not common “motorcycle jets”, but every time one of these robberies is committed, one or two cover vehicles go there, with armed individuals, who intervene if the police try to thwart the robbery.
According to the New York police, the Aragua Train’s objective in stealing cell phones is twofold: the first is hack the computers, in case they are blocked, and use them to empty the bank accounts and credit cards of the victims; The devices are then sent to Colombia, where they are “cleaned” and then resold as “reconditioned” equipment.
The “pirates” to the south
What happened the night before night was that the lieutenant, who was leaving an evangelical cult along with his wife and son, noticed a motorist who was trying to rob the occupants of a vehicle and intervened, being attacked at that moment by at least four subjects. who were traveling in a Chevrolet Onix. After the officer defended himself and injured the driver (Julio César González Vargas), the others fled on foot and two of them boarded a second car, a Honda Accord, that was waiting for them a couple of blocks away.
At yesterday’s control hearing, the detention of the three defendants was extended until next Sunday at 10 in the morning. These are Wilbert de Jesús Olivares Peña, Yolvi González Arcaya and Josué Ramírez Oliveros, all Venezuelans, awaiting genetic tests, nitrate residue tests – through which they seek to determine if they hit firearms – and other procedures.
Prosecutor Felipe Olivari explained in that instance that the second of the accused was the only one who provided cooperation and that a video taken 40 minutes before the attack (that is, around 9:00 p.m.) was found on his cell phone. at the corner of Alameda and Las Rejas (in Estación Central), where they are aboard the Onix, it is seen that next to them is the Honda and, in addition, it is seen how the subject who was traveling on the motorcycle steals a cell phone to a passerby.
After the attack against Lieutenant Sánchez, the Honda Accord was detected through highway gates near Melipilla and then moving further south. According to the information provided by prosecutor Olivari, the subjects arrived at a house in the Corvi Sur town, in Graneros, where at least one of them (González) changed his clothes.
Around 5:00 a.m., at kilometer 25 of the Central Highway, Carabineros managed to arrest three subjects, while they are searching for a fourth who is not yet identified.
The flight to the O’Higgins Region is precisely another of the factors why there is conviction that those involved have a relationship with “The Pirates”, given that since the original group took that name and began to operate as such , began to cover communities in which it had not intervened before, among them, Calama – where a large cell was dismantled at the end of last year –, Rancagua and Santa Cruz, cities that even “The Pirates” have advertised as places where they operate, through their WhatsApp statuses.
As reported The counter, the kidnapping of a businessman from Rancagua, which occurred at the end of 2023, as well as the homicide of two farmers who were followed from the Lo Valledor Fair to Malloa, where they were murdered to steal 8 million pesos, are crimes committed by the “ pirates.” In the framework of the first investigation, in fact, at least two safe houses that the group maintained in rural areas of the province of Colchagua were detected, in one of which they kept the kidnapped person hidden. It is believed that there may be more similar places and that they may have hidden in one of them for a few hours before returning to the capital.
The taking of Maipú
Another issue being investigated is the relationship of the subjects with the Vicente Reyes camp, the Maipú seizure located at the intersection of Pajaritos and Camino a Melipilla, where at the end of last February the lifeless body of the former Army lieutenant was found. Venezuelan Ronald Ojeda, after he was kidnapped a week earlier from his apartment in the commune of Independencia. As you will remember, so far there is one person detained, a young Venezuelan who claims to be 17 years old, and there are at least two arrest warrants in force regarding two subjects who are part of “The Pirates” and who acted directly in the kidnapping: Walter Rodríguez Pérez and Maickel Villegas Rodríguez.
In fact, the investigators of the case are convinced that, after the homicide, the now accused went to the seizure (which is controlled by “The Pirates”) and this would explain why, to head south, they continued towards Melipilla, in circumstances that the straightest route was along the Central Highway. Added to this are other antecedents that link at least two of the detainees with said seizure.
One of them (Ramírez), in fact, declared that his address was Santa Marta 200, which is the generic address of said seizure, the same address that he indicated in January of this year, when he was arrested in that commune driving a stolen vehicle.
The expelled
Two of the detainees (Olivares and Ramírez) have a Chilean RUT, while González Arcaya assured that he entered through a clandestine passage, the same thing that the now deceased González Vargas did in 2020, in respect of whom an expulsion decree was issued, later that he was detected clandestinely entering the country, for which it was determined that the Iquique PDI would expel him. In this regard, the PDI told The counter that “the person entered clandestinely through Colchane on September 14, 2020, without registering an address or email address. He was denounced by PDI Iquique and then an expulsion decree was issued. To date he had not been located, since he did not register an address.”
The other murdered police officer
It is worth remembering almost exactly a year ago, another homicide of a police officer took place – in that case, the victim was the senior non-commissioned officer Daniel Palma –, on Matta Avenue, commune of Santiago, where the perpetrators of the crime turned out to be all members of a cell of the Aragua Train that operated between Santiago and Concepción, which also accounts for the movement to the south of that group, whose first territorial settlement was in Iquique and Arica – where another branch of the TDA operates: The Galicians of Caracas.
In Santiago and Concepción, those now accused acted – among other criminal activities – collecting rents on buildings and cités taken illegally. In fact, the attendance of non-commissioned officer Palma at the place where he was murdered occurred because the Venezuelans collected with bullets the debt that a Colombian had with them, for the rental of a room. The subject whom the Prosecutor’s Office identifies as the material author of the homicide, Ovimarlixion Garcés Briceño, was also detected illegally entering Chile through Colchane in 2020, almost a month after González, since in his case he was found on October 13 of that year. .
As in the case of González, an expulsion order was issued against him (although under the name “Arlixon Garcés Briceño”), which was also not carried out. A no less detail is that when he was arrested, on April 10 of last year, along with another of those involved, Luis Lugo Machado, they were arrested in a city located on Nueva Imperial Street, in Quinta Normal, just three blocks from the place where Lieutenant Sánchez was murdered the night before.
By the way, the crimes of Lieutenant Emmanuel Sánchez and Senior Non-Commissioned Officer Palma are not the only attacks against Carabineros officials committed by members of “The Pirates”, since the brief history of this spin-off The TDA also considers the throwing of a grenade at a police station, an event in which the police suffered serious injuries, while the attacker, who turned out to be one of the leaders of the group, died as a result of the shots he received from the another police officer present in the procedure. It was Jefferson Arzonar Meza García, 36 years old.
On November 15 of last year, a couple of police tried to inspect it on the corner of Centenario and Club Hífico – very close to the sector where the “ball players” who throw drugs, weapons and even food into the courtyards of the former Penitentiary are located. , but Meza resisted, throwing a grenade at police officer Rayén Curihuil.
A few months earlier, in May 2023, Meza had been arrested in the center of Santiago (Prat and Placer Street) carrying almost 250 grams of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and ketamine. He was sentenced to a sentence of 541 days, but received the benefit of supervised release, and his expulsion from the country was ordered.
