Uruguayan arrested in Genoa for drug trafficking had received eight bullet wounds in August
Eros Nicola Castellán Airaldo, 32, was arrested in Italy alongside three others while extracting 119 drug bricks from a container. Two months earlier he had survived a shooting attack in Montevideo.
Arrested in Genoa with 119 bricks, weeks after surviving a shooting in Montevideo
Eros Nicola Castellán Airaldo, a 32-year-old Uruguayan, was detained on Tuesday evening by Italian police while removing 119 drug bricks from a container alongside three other people at the port of Pra' in Genoa, according to subrayado.com.uy.
The arrest occurred less than two months after Castellán Airaldo was involved in a serious incident of violence in Montevideo. On 16 August, at around 20:00 hours, he received eight bullet impacts to the back and shoulder whilst driving a Volkswagen ID3 at the intersection of Francisco Etchegoyen and Patricios, in the Ituzaingó neighbourhood. The attacker used an automatic firearm of large calibre and fired at least 15 shots; one of them struck a window of Liceo 13.
Despite his wounds, Castellán Airaldo drove under his own power to the house of a relative located about three minutes away by car, on Carreras Nacionales and Luis Galvani, where he requested assistance. His vehicle bore 15 bullet impacts.
That night, the relative told investigators that he had seen him moments before the attack and that the man worked in property rental. However, Castellán Airaldo had three criminal records in Uruguay, the most recent from 2021 for drug offences, in addition to others linked to internal arms trafficking and several investigations for theft and armed robbery.
According to what Subrayado learned, Uruguayan police do not associate him with any specific criminal group or organisation, although they do establish that he maintains close links with the supporters' group of Alan Lorenzo, from Nacional. Lorenzo was detained in the Colón neighbourhood of Montevideo after participating in an attempted bank robbery in Argentina, and in 2019 was arrested in Flores for attempting to rob a Paraguayan truck transporting cocaine.
Source: Google News UY — Crime