At least 17 people died and 56 were hospitalized, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, after massive poisoning with adulterated cocaine, the Argentine authorities announced on Wednesday February 2. “Those who have bought drugs in the last twenty-four hours must throw them away”, said the security minister of the province of Buenos Aires, Sergio Berni on the Telefe television channel. He added that the authorities were in the process “to try to locate the toxic substance in order to remove it from circulation”.
Police operations were carried out in the popular suburb of Tres de Febrero, northwest of the capital, and a dozen people were arrested, according to the provincial minister who went there. Sachets of cocaine were seized there, similar to those identified by relatives of victims, Berni added. At the end of the day, the cut drug was being analyzed in a laboratory in La Plata.
The alert was given Wednesday morning when several deaths and hospitalizations for poisoning, with various degrees of severity, occurred in three separate hospitals in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, in Hurlingham, Tres de Febrero and San Martin. Several of the hospitalized told the caregivers that they had used cocaine together.
Probably more victims
The victims, including several men in their thirties and forties, suffered violent convulsions and sudden cardiac arrests, according to medical reports quoted by several media. “There is an important component that attacks the central nervous system”said Mr. Berni.
The mother of a 41-year-old hospitalized victim, who did not give her name, told several media outlets in Loma Hermosa that she found her son in the early hours of Wednesday “on the kitchen floor, unable to speak, as a victim of cardiac arrest”. The local public prosecutor’s office in the district of San Martin announced “that a highly toxic substance marketed under the name of cocaine circulates” currently recommending the utmost caution to persons in possession of the drug.
“Our concern today is to be able to communicate, so that those who are in possession of this poison know that it should not be consumed”declared on Radio Miter the prosecutor of San Martin in charge of the file, Marcelo Lapargo.
The investigators feared that the balance sheet could rise, with the discovery of consumers who would not have had the time or the means to approach a care center. “There are deaths on the public highway or in homes, of which it was not possible to determine the number”said fear an official source.
Tensions in the neighborhoods concerned
“When we say bad cocaine, we are not talking here about rotten or expired cocaine”but cut with a toxic substance, explained Mr. Berni to the media in Loma Hermosa.
“Every dealer who buys cocaine cuts it. Some do this with non-toxic substances, such as starch. Others put hallucinogens in it and if there is no control, this kind of thing happens. »
In the afternoon, some clashes briefly opposed residents of the Loma Hermosa district, part of the suburb of Tres de Febrero, who were protesting against the arrest of young people from the district as part of the investigation, and threw stones on the font. This mobilized some 1,500 personnel in the neighborhoods concerned, according to a spokesperson for the province. In Loma Hermosa, the inhabitants remained vehement Wednesday evening, particularly upset against the police who, as part of their searches, ransacked or destroyed homes.