Former federal police officers Héctor Osvaldo Goncalvez and Diego Ángel Díaz were traveling in a car on the morning of September 7, 2016 when the tense tranquility of guarding a truck carrying Lacoste clothing through the West Access burst into bullets and blood: a commando group of asphalt pirates, of at least six men and four high-end cars, crossed the truck on the road and began shooting to take the loot. The two guards ended up agonizing to death in the Luján hospital: Goncalvez (50) was hit in the neck and face and Díaz (48), in the chest and in one of his arms.
Exactly seven months later, the Buenos Aires Minister of Security, Cristian Ritondo, will announce today with some pomp that the gang of asphalt pirates that participated in that bloody assault was caught. Goncalvez was not just another victim: he had been one of the custodians of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, and had yet to testify in the cause of the death of the investigator of the AMIA case.
After 14 raids in places like La Matanza, Monte Grande, Ezeiza, San Martín, Pilar and Capital, among others, the Police arrested 13 suspected members of this gang, which has heavy blows on its record. A source from the investigation told Infobae that they would be the ones who participated in various robberies of trucks with branded clothing or electronic elements and even one full of wheat.
With that cinematographic eagerness of the police authorities that is born before great works, they baptized the band as "Los Reyes del Asfalto". "They used FAL automatic weapons, machine guns, they had a fleet of vehicles, bulletproof vests, satellite jammers and a lot of money at the service of crime," a source in the case told this outlet, detailing that the sum of the bills gave around 2 million of pesos.
Apparently, these asphalt monarchs had been followed by the Police at the request of various prosecutors (in Mercedes and in Lomas de Zamora), since June 24, 2016, even with wiretaps that compromised them. With the months and the assaults that were taking place, other causes were added.
My wife discovered how to make Sonic's Ocean Water at home the other night. Taste just as good. My mind has been blown 😍
— Anthony Johns Thu Sep 17 13:09:27 +0000 2020
This is how they identified several members of what would be an association of people who worked in an organized and permanent way even up to these days. According to the investigators, and Ritondo will repeat, they were planning an assault for today, Friday the 7th.
The gang operated with the technique of any group dedicated to asphalt piracy. Managed information on departure times and truck routes. And they activated their attacks on stolen vehicles, with which they robbed the trucks, subdued the drivers and guards and took them to remote places while other members moved the stolen merchandise to a previously defined shed. From there they took it out in small, inconspicuous cars and kept it in a warehouse until it was distributed on the black market.
But that September morning the job did not go as planned. After killing Goncalvez and Díaz, employees of the ASIPROF security company, they had more problems. The Scania truck of the "Metropolitan" company in Lacoste clothes that they had just procured stopped by itself, thanks to an electronic safety system, which cut off the fuel supply remotely.
The assailants had to abandon it in the Buenos Aires district of General Rodríguez. They escaped from the Police, but his destiny seemed to have crossed the turning point that all history has, the curve between success and failure. They were already following them. There were barely seven months left for the final fall.
