A gang that committed scams from prison has been dismantled in recent hours after detaining four of its members in the town of Pilar, Buenos Aires Province. Police seized dollars paid by victims and impounded a car with altered registration. Police sources informed the Argentine News Agency that the operations were carried out by the Pilar SubDDI of the provincial force after deceiving two major local merchants with this method. The investigation established that the gang operated in coordination from prison, where they issued directives and orchestrated the scams, while the arrested acted outside as executors of the crime. The case began after a merchant reported the hacking of his cell phone and another man in the same occupation was deceived into handing over 4,500 dollars. Through undercover and field investigations, officers determined that one of the suspects would return to the area intending to carry out a new maneuver to obtain more money. With this information, a joint operation was set up involving personnel from the Pilar SubDDI, the Pilar Security Station, the 8th Pilar Police Station, and the local Secretariat of Security Monitoring Center. The procedure took place near Beato Jansen Street, between Mexico and Paraguay, where Thomas Ezequiel Benítez, 21, was intercepted, allegedly one of the material perpetrators. He had already participated in the first collection, moving by motorcycle with another man. Subsequently, a cordon operation was implemented to intercept a black Peugeot 208, in which two women and a man were identified: Matías Gabriel Cano, 31, Gladys Nadia Benítez, 39, and Bárbara Estefanía Aveni, 25. Inside the vehicle, 4,300 dollars were seized, established as part of the money recently stolen from one of the victims. Likewise, the vehicle presented an irregularity in the chassis number, preventing the determination of its origin, constituting the crime of suppression or alteration of registration numbering. The Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) number 1 of Pilar, in charge of Raúl Casal, and the Guarantees Court number 7 of the San Isidro Judicial Department are involved in the case. Casal ordered the urgent apprehension of the four accused, the seizure of the vehicle, and the return of the recovered money to the victim. The detainees will be transferred to the fiscal headquarters to give a statement in the first hearing, while investigators search for a fifth person allegedly linked to the coordination of the operations from the prison environment, so new operations in the coming hours are not ruled out.
