Justice has ordered pre-trial detention and charged the two pilots and the other three men who were arrested after the crash of a small plane carrying 364 kilos of cocaine last Tuesday in a rural area of Rosario, Salta.
The measure was taken at the request of the Salta Fiscal Unit, as a result of which Judge Mariela Giménez formalized the charge for drug smuggling within the framework of the criminal investigation's formalization hearing, where the magistrate set a six-month deadline for the investigation and a coercive measure.
The hearing was attended by the Attorney General Eduardo Villalba, the Deputy Attorney General Mariana Gamba Cremaschi, and the auxiliary prosecutor Florencia Altamirano, who named the five men as presumed authors of the crime of smuggling the import of narcotics, aggravated by the number of people involved and the use of an aircraft operated irregularly.
The accusations fell on the Bolivian pilots Juan Pablo Quinteros Peredo and Henry Álvaro Mercado Cuajera as co-authors, while Julián Darío Mansilla, Jonathan Alejandro Gómez, and Jorge Alberto Cuellar were charged as necessary participants.
In the case of the last three accused mentioned, the judge also accepted the alternative charge of aggravated drug transportation due to the number of people involved.
The incident occurred on November 5th when the aircraft impacted in a grassy area. In its fuselage, 136 kilos of drugs, distributed in plastic bags, were found, while federal forces discovered another significant load of cocaine buried on a nearby farm: an additional 228 kilos.
The two accused had tried to go unnoticed, mingling with night travelers, with the aim of taking a bus north or to Tucumán, in any direction that would take them away from where the provincial forces were searching for them.
Likewise, the judicial official reported that after the crash, an intentional fire was registered, which caused damage to a Volkswagen Gol Trend car, while the aircraft was also destroyed.
