Uruguayan drug trafficker gunned down in Palermo in front of his wife
Carlos Andrés Migales Viera, 31, was shot dead by hired killers in a flat in Palermo, Buenos Aires. His wife was unharmed and two people have been detained.
Hired killers shoot dead drug trafficker in his Palermo flat
A man with an extensive criminal record in Uruguay was killed in the early hours of Sunday in a flat at Costa Rica 5200, in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Palermo, according to clarin.com. Carlos Andrés Migales Viera, 31, had recently arrived from Uruguay with his wife, María Mercedes, 27, also Uruguayan, who survived the attack unharmed.
The hired killers, identified as being from the south of the Buenos Aires conurbation, are believed to have entered the flat after the victim himself opened the door. After the crime they attempted to dispose of a weapon—allegedly equipped with a silencer—at the corner of Santa Fe Avenue and Intendente Bullrich, in Puente Pacífico, some ten blocks from the scene. Two people have been detained as part of the investigation, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Court of Criminal and Correctional Matters No. 26.
"The Uruguayan Police detained him a thousand times: for robbery, for selling drugs. They consider him a small-time drug trafficker, but who in recent times was getting ahead," a source linked to the investigation told Clarín.
A criminal record dating back to age 15
Migales Viera's criminal record dates back to June 2009, when he was just 15 years old. In the following years he accumulated arrests for robbery, escape from a police station, disorderly conduct and seizure of drugs. In 2016 his arrests concentrated on drug dealing charges, and in 2024 he was arrested for aggravated homicide. Added to this are records for firearm discharge, another homicide, injuries and property crimes. Practically no police station in Montevideo did not know him; he was also on the radar of the National Anti-Drug Brigade, the Investigations Division and the Highway Police.
The crime and its possible link to a wave of drug trafficking violence in Buenos Aires
Investigators do not entirely rule out the context of a series of violent incidents perpetrated by Uruguayan drug traffickers in the metropolitan area during 2024, although for the time being they do not establish a direct connection. That series, more complex and involving higher-ranking figures within drug trafficking, involved at least three incidents in the northern zone and in Recoleta.
The first occurred on 25 September 2024 in Pilar: residents reported gunshots on Las Camelias Street at 2300 and police found a man who identified himself with an Uruguayan passport as Joaquín Andrés Amoros Sanguinetti, 27. The individual lived in a high-end house and had arrived in a BMW M235i valued at around 80,000 dollars. A security camera recorded how a black Jeep Renegade without a number plate pulled alongside him and shot him 17 times. The Court concluded it was an attempted homicide, not a robbery. It was later established that the subject was using a stolen identity and his real name was Nicolás Caraballo Escobar.
The second incident occurred on 12 October in Derqui, in the Pilar district. Uruguayan Marcelo González Algerini, 36, stopped his Chevrolet Tracker van in front of a small shop on San Cayetano Street at 800. His companion, Teófilo Américo Sturm González, 80, got out of the vehicle on the pretext of buying something, at which point a Jeep Renegade—very similar to the one in the previous incident—positioned itself next to the Tracker and fired ten shots at close range at González Algerini. Four proved fatal.
Almost simultaneously, at the victim's home within the gated community Finca San Agustín, a man identified as Fabián Sturm Jardón entered and took three blocks of cocaine wrapped in yellow paper. A subsequent search revealed a hydraulic press, an electronic scale and traces of cocaine. Also seized were 694,011 dollars, although the sum never reached the court: the Police claimed a typing error and remitted only 69 dollars, which led to a separate case.
González Algerini's girlfriend stated that her partner and Fabián Sturm Jardón were the ones who had attacked Caraballo Escobar in September, and that both were partners. Prosecutor Marcela Semeria, in charge of the investigation in the northern zone, detained Teófilo Sturm González for "aggravated homicide by the participation of two or more people, possession of a firearm and cocaine dealing". Due to his advanced age he was granted house arrest and was ultimately acquitted. His son Fabián remained at large, as did the man calling himself Amoros Sanguinetti.
The Narcocriminalidad Prosecutor's Office (Procunar) determined that the latter was impersonating the identity of another drug trafficker imprisoned in Uruguay. In 2025 he was detained in Brazil and extradited to Argentina.
Third attack: Recoleta
The third incident in that series occurred in December 2024 in the Recoleta neighbourhood, where the victim had moved to evade both an arrest warrant issued by the San Isidro Court and threats from his rivals. Procunar also intervened because González Algerini was being sought by the Federal Court of Lomas de Zamora, accused of belonging to a gang dismantled in June of that year.
The murder of Migales Viera in Palermo fits a pattern of settling scores linked to drug trafficking of Uruguayan origin in Buenos Aires, although investigators are still determining whether there is a direct connection with the incidents of 2024.
Source: Google News UY — Crime