"In an
interview prior to his escape, Cristian Lanatta claimed the former Chief of the Cabinet, Aníbal Domingo Fernández, had ordered the murders in a bid to consolidate control over ephedrine trafficking in Argentina. This was not the first time Fernández was accused of being involved in the Triple Crime or trafficking ephedrine, a precursor chemical for manufacturing methamphetamine and other designer drugs."
Argentina authorities have captured three recently escaped fugitives serving time for the politically-charged "Triple Crime" murder case.
insightcrime.org
A staunch Kirchner loyalist, Fernández is no stranger to controversy, being linked to football hooligans in his home town of Quilmes where in 2007 a Peronist rival accused him of ordering a gun attack on his house in order to intimidate him.
During his years as interior and then justice minister
Argentina saw a boom in the volume of ephedrine imports after Mexico’s decision to clamp down on the drug in a bid to tackle growing methamphetamine production.
Argentina’s ephedrine imports jumped from 4,500 kilos a year in 2005 to 19,000 kilos in 2007. When a Peronist senator moved to ban imports in 2008 Fernández, who then served as interior minister, warned the senate that any measure would violate the human rights of the country’s sick.
Journalist’s allegations against cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández spark Peronist feud
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