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Nicolás Cardozo Merladet They killed him in cold bloodHe was shot dead in Canelones, Uruguay, by a commando group that posed as police officers and simulated a raid on his home. The crime did not go unnoticed in ArgentinaThe murder of La Cocona, as the victim was known, may be related to the tunnel of at least 150 meters, which a criminal gang made in the historic center of San Isidro to rob a bank with the intention of seizing a million-dollar loot. The robbery was thwarted.
This is how he was able to reconstruct it THE NATION According to qualified judicial sources, Cardozo Merladet had a criminal record. In 2016 he was captured in Argentina while he was a fugitive from Uruguayan justice, accused of being part of a gang dedicated to robbing houses in Sauce and Toledo, in the department of Canelones. A mayor was among the victims of the criminal organization. He was extradited to his native country.
Judicial sources explained to THE NATION that La Cocona had relations with his compatriots Alan Daniel Lorenzo Rodríguez and Nicolás Carpani Romero, arrested in Uruguay for their alleged participation in the criminal plan to rob the San Isidro branch of Banco Macro.
Furthermore, according to the spokesmen consulted, Cardozo Merladet would have played an important role in the preparation of the failed coup. In 2023, according to immigration records, La Cocona came to Argentina with the rest of the criminals under investigation. “I had ties and knowledge in the country”said a detective involved in the investigation.
Sources with access to the case explained that Cardozo Merladet “participated in the preparation of the contracts to rent the two properties in San Isidro chosen by the gang to prepare and plan the tunnel” that would take the criminals to the bank located at Chacabuco 444.
Alan Daniel Lorenzo Rodríguez and Alejandro Rosendo López, the first two detainees in the caseBuenos Aires Police
As reported THE NATIONFirst, in February 2023, the gang rented a property located at Ituzaingó 341, on the same block as the bank and in front of the San Isidro court building, where the Habeas Corpus bar operated for years, visited by judges, prosecutors and lawyers.
In August 2023, after stopping paying the rent for Ituzaingó 341, the criminal organization rented a warehouse located at Chacabuco 535/547, where the thieves began to make the tunnel that would connect them to the bank branch.
But why did they kill La Cocona? The researchers have at least three hypotheses. One of them is that Cardozo Merladet was the “rod man” which made the criminal plan, after a thorough and professional elaboration, vanish in seconds.
As reported at the time, the tunnel was discovered by chance. On Tuesday the 7th of this month, shortly before 8:30, a supplier of Berni, a restaurant located at Chacabuco 400, a few meters from Banco Macro, heard a strange noise under his truck.
Something he didn’t know what it was was banging on the chassis. The strange sound didn’t stop. He then drove the vehicle a few meters and, after getting off, he saw something that caught his attention: an iron rod protruding from between the cobblestones. Soon the staff of the confectionery and other merchants approached. No one understood what they were seeing.
After the discovery, and as they were unable to remove the rod from between the cobblestones, the shopkeepers in the area decided to bend it so that no driver would run it over. They then asked the bank’s security staff to place a fluorescent orange cone to mark the spot.
At that moment, members of the gang who were a few meters away acting as a lookout, observed everything and notified their accomplices, who decided to abort the plan, abandon the warehouse and escape to Uruguay. That same day, Alejandro Rosendo López, the third suspect arrested, changed the chip on his cell phone. He was even denied release yesterday..
The tunnel was finally discovered the next day after many hours of excavation.
“If La Cocona was the one who manipulated the iron rod under the paving stones, as is one hypothesis, he may have been murdered to avenge his mistake, which ended up being key to the discovery of the tunnel a few hours later,” said an investigator.
Another hypothesis that Argentine judicial and police detectives are considering is that the rest of the gang suspected that Cardozo Merladet was the informant who led Rodríguez and Carpani Romero, who have a history of drug trafficking and membership in the Nacional gang in Montevideo, to prison.
In this regard, in the last few hours, San Isidro Judge Andrea Rodríguez Mentasty requested the authorities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to formalize the process to request the extradition of the two Uruguayan suspects detained in Montevideo.
The third hypothesis being examined by investigators is that La Cocona’s murder was motivated by “financial disagreements” over the money that was lost when the criminal plan was foiled.
Apocryphal documentation
The investigation of the attempted robbery was led by prosecutor Carolina Asprella and deputy attorney general Patricio Ferrari, team coordinated by the Attorney General of San Isidro, John Broyadwith the collaboration of detectives from the local Departmental Delegation of Investigations (DDI), led by the Chief Commissioner Javier Specia, and personnel from the Federal Fugitive Investigation and Extradition Division of the Interpol Department of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA).
Investigators are now focused on analyzing the false documentation that the gang used to rent the two properties in San Isidro, where they used false identities and fake documents.
“Moreover, even the telephone number of the alleged guarantor was not the real one. They used the ID and an address in Florida, Vicente López, of the former footballer and current technical director Hernán Crespo,” said a judicial detective.
Forgery of documentation plus the crime of aggravated robbery for its commission in a populated place and in a gang in an attempted degreeas was the charge used by Judge Rodríguez Mentasty to order the arrest of Carpani Romero, lead investigators to believe that the suspects could be accused of being part of an illicit association.
Finally, judicial and police detectives are analyzing the “strange disappearance” of a homeless person who used to sleep in front of a Chinese supermarket located next to the warehouse where the gang began to make the tunnel.
“We don’t know if the homeless man was part of the gang and slept on the street to act as a lookout or if he became the criminals’ friend and in exchange for money ‘lent’ them his identity or did them another favour. What is certain is that the last time they saw him he was well dressed, clean and with a neat beard,” said a source in the investigation, who wants to tie up all the loose ends.
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