At least 17 people died and another 56 are hospitalized, 26 of them in critical condition, in hospitals in the districts of Hulingham, San Martín and Tres de Febrero, due to intoxication due to the alleged consumption of adulterated cocaine.sources from the Buenos Aires Government reported this afternoon.
The spokesmen added that the number could be increasedsince there are deaths on public roads and homes, whose number could not yet be established, while the number of internees is constantly expanding with the arrival of people in serious condition to the admission of the guards of the assistance centers.
“It could be that it is a settling of accounts between gangs of traffickers but it is conjectural, we have no history of this, which leads us to think that whatever substance has been included intentionally, It is not an error in the processing of the material or it doesn’t seem to be,” the attorney general of San Martín, Marcelo Lapargo, told the press this afternoon.
Regarding the number of deceased, the judicial official explained: “We have nine dead, it could be that there are 12 and the number of internees must exceed fifty.” Hours later, official information reported 17 dead.
For his part, the Buenos Aires Security Minister, Sergio Berni, added that in a series of procedures that he led during the afternoon in a settlement known as “Puerta 8”, of the Tres de Febrero party, ten people were arrested in a cocaine sales bunker that had already been raided 45 days ago as part of other investigation.
In the case, a specialized prosecutor’s office in Illicit Drugs of the Judicial Department of San Martín, in charge of Germán Martínez, who must now determine if that settlement was the origin of the drug and if the detainees were responsible for its commercialization.
Having information about the first victims, the San Martín Attorney General’s Office issued a statement to alert the population.
“It is brought to the attention of the general public that It has been determined that a substance marketed as a highly toxic kitchen circulates. To date, there have been seven deaths and at least a dozen hospitalizations of the highest complexity due to the consequences of its consumption,” the statement warned.
“Such information is communicated to the general population in order for them to adopt positive behaviors in order to protect themselves and take care of their health“, he indicated.
Regarding the circumstances of the event, Lapargo told the press that It is not yet known what the cocaine was adulterated with and he said there are suspicions that it was an intentional act.
“We do not know what it is adulterated with, it is not something normal, it is not something usual. This fact is absolutely exceptional, we have no precedent, which leads us to think that whatever substance it is has been intentionally included, it is not an error in the processing of the material or it doesn’t seem to be,” Lapargo said.
In this regard, he added: “We have the testimony of a person who was in a group that was consuming who simply said I consumed a small amount, I felt very bad and did not consume more. Those who were with him continued and three of them died ” .
In this sense, the sources consulted indicated that One of the intoxicated men even told the police that he had bought the drug he had ingested in the vicinity of the “Puerta 8” emergency neighborhood in Tres de Febrero.and a package with the substance in question was seized, which will now be analyzed in the laboratory, along with another dose of the drug that was seized from one of the patients of the Prompt Attention Unit (UPA) 9, wrapped in a 20 peso bill.
When the possible point of sale of the drug was determined, the UFI 16 of San Martín, took charge of the entire investigation for the deaths and dozens of intoxicated people, including those who died in Hurlingham.
Berni reported that in the raided places “he found cocaine in similar wrappers” to those provided by a relative of one of the seven victims,
“Those who bought drugs in the last 24 hours have to discard them”Bernie warned.
The first police intervention It occurred between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at the San Bernardino care center in Hurlingham, after the admission of 11 people -all domiciled in that party in the west of the suburbs- with a cocaine intoxication picture.
Four men, three of them 33, 36 and 45 years old and a fourth of unreported age, arrived deceased, according to the police report.
In turn, seven other patients -six of them men between 31 and 41 years old and the remaining one a 44-year-old woman-, remained hospitalized in the same hospital.
The sources indicated three other men aged 35, 40 and 41 years were intubated and in a reserved state in the UPA 9 of the Miter neighborhood of Villa Tesei, also in the Hurlingham district.
Later, more deceased and intoxicated people were added in different hospitals in the Buenos Aires districts of San Martín and Tres de Febrero.
