Eleven murders in one week in Montevideo: Interior ministry points to narco wars
May closed with eleven homicides in seven days across different neighbourhoods of Montevideo. Interior Minister Carlos Negro attributes the wave of violence to disputes between criminal gangs.
Wave of homicides in Montevideo: government points to clashes between drug traffickers
Eleven murders in one week shook different neighbourhoods of Montevideo at the close of May, according to infobae.com. Uruguayan police authorities identified a "common denominator" in all cases: wars between narco organisations fighting for territorial control.
Interior Minister Carlos Negro confirmed this on Monday at a press conference. "A common denominator is evident, which is surely the struggle between criminal gangs. We know that intervening in territories with police presence, dismantling gangs and imprisoning leaders of those organisations, as happened a few days ago in Maldonado, can cause internal fights among those seeking to lead that type of organisations," the official stated.
Negro warned that this type of internal dispute leads to "higher levels of violence". At the same time, he urged caution when interpreting the data. "Analyses must be carried out in a scheduled, planned and prior manner, and they must cover a period that scientifically allows conclusions to be drawn. Drawing conclusions from short periods of time does not provide relevant information," he explained.
Triple crime in Cerro neighbourhood
One of the most violent episodes of the week occurred in the Cerro neighbourhood, in the west of Montevideo. A vehicle stopped in front of a drug dealing point; five people dressed in black got out, entered the house and opened fire on everyone present. Two men and one woman died at the scene; two other people were injured and were hospitalised.
To that triple homicide was added another murder on Wednesday, two more on Friday and three crimes during the last weekend, according to information from Telemundo newscast on Channel 12.
Three dead in less than an hour on Saturday
In the space of one hour, between 20:50 and 22:00 on Saturday, three homicides were recorded at different points on the capital's periphery: the neighbourhoods of Marconi, Piedras Blancas and Ituzaingó. All the victims died as a result of gunshot wounds. In one of the cases, investigators are examining whether the victim had criminal links, given that he was carrying a replica firearm.
"El Kane" arrested, drug trafficker with bunker in Maldonado
Within the context of the same tensions, Minister Negro highlighted the arrest of a "leader" of a criminal gang from Maldonado in the hours preceding the press conference. This is Ricardo Pérez, known as El Kane, arrested last Friday, according to the newspaper El País.
El Kane is identified by authorities as one of the main drug traffickers in the department of Maldonado, with criminal records linked to drug trafficking in the city of San Carlos. The Police Chief of Maldonado, Víctor Trezza, described at a press conference that the detainee "lived in a monitored bunker" and that a previous inspection had already been carried out at the location due to a homicide that occurred a block away from the building.
A search of the bunker made it possible to seize three kilos of high-purity cocaine, a significant arsenal of weapons of various types, ammunition and vehicles. "Most of the arsenal was buried underground," Trezza specified. The operation required joint work with the municipality and the use of an excavator to extract the buried material.
Source: Google News UY — Montevideo