The Justice of Rosario has initiated a historic trial against the drug gang led by Francisco Riquelme, in which 12 life sentences are requested for 38 reported criminal acts, 16 of them murders. According to the Argentine News Agency, prosecutors understand that there was an illicit association to which eleven criminal acts committed between 2021 and 2022 in the neighborhoods of Ludueña, Empalme Graneros, and Industrial are attributed. To these are added almost 30 violent episodes attributed to the gang that will not be tried in this process but demonstrate the actions of the organization led by Riquelme. Therefore, the organization - with Riquelme himself among the accused - was brought to oral trial and an unusual request for 12 life sentences was made. The prosecutors requested a life sentence for Riquelme as head of an illicit association, a role he exercised even from prison, and as the mastermind of two contract killings. The accused became known in March 2020 for the attempted murder of Mariana Ortigala, a close associate of the drug dealer Esteban Alvarado, who is currently detained in Ezeiza. The woman in question survived a shooting that had 27 shots, from which she received five in front of her house. However, her peak of violence came with the appearance of a narco-criminal organization associated with 'Los Monos', thus generating a war with dozens of deaths. A month later, Riquelme was imprisoned and identified as 'head of hitmen' for Alvarado, being accused as one of the three shooters. In January 2024, he was accused of threatening the governor of Santa Fe, Maximiliano Pullaro, and in December of that same year, Riquelme was sentenced to 5 years in prison for insulting two guards who had prevented him from receiving visits in the Ezeiza prison. A week later, a sheet with the names of the guards appeared hanging on the prison fence. The gang burst onto the Rosario criminal scene in 2021 against the backdrop of drug trafficking, with extortion, shootings, murders, and attacks on public buildings in its record.
