The investigation into the disappearance of boy Loan Danilo Peña in Argentina's Corrientes province will see new developments this Friday. To understand the plot behind one of the country's most impactful cases, Noticias Argentinas (NA) has drafted the 10 most important questions regarding the case against the 17 accused.
Loan disappeared on June 13, 2024, in the locality of 9 de Julio, Corrientes, when he went to have lunch at his grandmother Catalina's house with family and acquaintances. After the meal, a group of children, including Loan, went to an orange grove with several adults. It was at this moment, according to investigators, that the boy's abduction and concealment took place.
Over the past few months, raids, expert examinations, searches, and even the draining of lagoons have been conducted. The case has the 'Sofía Alert' activated, a federal emergency system that coordinates all national and provincial security forces. The two cases have been unified in a single trial because 'the evidence and facts are closely linked,' and it also 'avoids dividing jurisdiction between courts.'
The first seven accused—Laudelina Peña, Walter Maciel, Victoria Caillava, Carlos Pérez, Mónica Millapi, Antonio Benítez, and Daniel Ramírez—are accused of the boy's abduction and concealment. The other ten accused—Federico Rossi Colombo, Nicolás Soria, Elizabeth Cutaia, Alan Cañete, Delfina Taborda, Pablo Noguera, Pablo Núñez, Valeria López, Verónica Machuca Yuni, and Leonardo Rubio—are charged with illegal deprivation of liberty, fraud against the public administration, obstruction of justice, false testimony, violation of professional secrecy, supply of narcotics, resistance to authority, and usurpation of insignias.
The trial will be presided over by judges Fermín Amado Ceroleni, Eduardo Ariel Belforte, and Simón Pedro Bracco. In mid-November 2025, the Corrientes Tribunal ratified federal jurisdiction, rejecting a defense motion to return the case to the provincial court due to the unproven hypothesis of human trafficking.
This Friday, February 27, a preliminary hearing will be held in the city of Corrientes where the prosecution, plaintiffs, and defense will present their arguments to decide how the oral trial against the accused will be conducted. There is no date set yet for the start of the main trial.
Awaiting the hearing, the investigation has continued with searches and operations in the province, but all have yielded negative results. In January, the national government updated Loan's face using Artificial Intelligence and increased the reward for information on the boy to 20 million pesos. The goal is to massively and immediately disseminate the image of a missing minor to increase the chances of finding him.
