Global Courant 2023-05-06 14:01:10
Iván (17) was walking down Carlos Calvo, in San Telmo, when a woman in her 70s, dressed as a nurse, stopped him and asked to borrow his cell phone. It was Wednesday April 19, around noon. “My patient just passed away and I need to call 911,” she told him. A man living on the street confirmed the situation as a witness. Ivan agreed.
The woman dialed a number. She introduced herself as health personnel, called for an ambulance and said: “I know you have a son who works in the corner market. Shall I tell you the news?”
While allegedly listening to someone speaking to her on Iván’s phone, the woman asked the teenager if she could go to the market and ask for the deceased’s son. She gave him a detail: he was a policeman who guarded a shoe store.
They arrested him in Balvanera with 137 stolen cell phones.
“How to think, I thought so… but she was a nurse. An older lady… how could she be suspicious?” Iván advances. That when he entered the market and asked for the shoe store, he received an answer “there are no stores in that area.” He returned resigned to the door of the building and confirmed it: his iPhone had been stolen.
In the City of Buenos Aires there are more than a thousand sequences of cell phone thefts per day. To the point that it is the most stolen asset, just like in the big cities of the world.
One of the most serious cases occurred on Sunday March 5, at dawn, when the Venezuelan systems engineer Juan Francisco Fernández Acosta (27) was shot in the head to take his cell phone, about four blocks from Plaza Serrano, heart of the Palermo neighborhood.
Juan Francisco Fernández Acosta (27), the young Venezuelan murdered in Palermo.
Another event that ended in homicide was that of Lurdes Avendaño Rejas (35), a Bolivian national, who was assassinated on Saturday, April 8, after 10 p.m., by two motorbikes that tried to steal the bag where she was carrying her cell phone, in Villa Soldati.
For the crime they accuse a 14-year-old teenager, nicknamed “Miguelito”, who bragged about his robberies on social networks and has posed with another minor, “Nikito”, with the loot from a series of assaults.
The modality of “uncle’s story” that Iván suffered is practically unprecedented. Although there are more and more cases of thieves entering businesses, posing as customers and chatting with employees or receptionists until they find the ideal moment to steal the phone without its owner noticing, in the typical theft called “carelessness”.
The call for the march to demand justice for the crime of Lurdes Avendaño Rejas (35) in Villa Soldati.
The gastronomy, on the other hand, have been denouncing another modality: false street vendors who approach the clients and cover the cell phones resting on the table with the consortium bags that they claim to sell.
“But the most common is the old and famous punguista. And we are noticing many outbursts,” clarifies a City Police investigator. Dozens of images of cell phone thefts are shown on the news every week. Robberies are reported at every meeting or birthday. But what is the route of those stolen phones?
The Violations and Offenses Against Public Order Division of this force has recovered 1,610 cell phones in the first four months of the year. In addition, they inspected 221 businesses: 60 were closed for selling cell phones without documentation, of stolen origin. And 15 of them had violated the closing strip and continued working. To those, the door was blocked. As if they were drug bunkers.
The young Venezuelan was assassinated when he was with a friend sitting on the sidewalk of Aráoz street, between Gorriti and Honduras.
“Most of the recovered phones were found in businesses in Comuna 3 (made up of the Balvanera and San Cristóbal neighborhoods),” explains a source who participates in the Division.
It is followed, in quantity, by shops from Commune 7 (in Flores), Commune 9 (in Liniers) and 4 (in Pompeya). “We have detected families with chains of this type of business. They had stolen phones in the Capital and the suburbs,” adds the researcher.
Many of those who buy and sell stolen phones are Peruvian nationals. There are also Argentines. And recently Venezuelans were detected. One of them was identified as Fedor Gámez Satonya (31). In his business, from Misiones to 200, on April 20, 12 telephones, memory cards, chips and tools for scrapping and unlocking devices were seized.
At least one of them had been stolen from the Mandarine nightclub and five days later it was returned to its owner, within the framework of the “restorative justice” program of the Ministry of Justice and Security of the City. Victims can check whether their phones were recovered on the “recoveries” platform.
“For them it is an easy and fast business,” explains a source who knows the day-to-day life of the locals, having sold phones with them. “They know that the only cause that can be opened to them is for ‘cover-up’ and that it is very rare for them to reach a prison. On top of that, they pay you little because they want you to believe that they want them for spare parts.”
The thieves receive approximately 8 thousand pesos for a Samsung Galaxy J7; between 12 thousand and 15 thousand for a Galaxy A22. The price may vary depending on the state of the device. The most precious is the latest iPhone: the reducers offer up to 20 thousand pesos for a 14 Pro Max.
“People, due to the crisis, consume more used than before. And they go to these places instead of going to official stores. It’s like what happened before with car wheels,” says the person consulted by Clarín.
What they don’t know, those people whose phone was stolen, or broke and they need to buy one as quickly as possible, is that they end up contributing to the criminal circle. They buy stolen. The reducers sell them in their stores or on social networks or sales pages. Like “used”.
But between buying and selling there is a step about which little is known. And that’s where the so-called “laboratories” of stolen cell phones come into play.
The data in Justice
Horacio Azzolin is the attorney general of the Specialized Cybercrime Prosecutor Unit (UFECI). He says that in November 2021 the story of cell phone thefts changed. And it didn’t stop growing.
“Historically, the objective was to sell it for the circuit or spare parts. Now there is a second step in which they can empty your bank accounts and electronic wallets, or even take out a loan at the bank or steal cryptocurrencies,” he explains.
This step occurs in private departments, in the so-called “laboratories”. From Argentina and abroad. “They don’t need more than a couple of computers, software and a few tools. We know of electronic engineers who do this, but they don’t necessarily have to be professionals. They are usually very small groups, not connected to each other. They do the real business. theft of a telephone”, describes the attorney general, who adds that it is essential that each victim of theft file a complaint.
The phones, whether or not they have bank account applications or virtual wallets, will return to stores already unlocked, ready for resale. “An unlocking can be paid between 4,000 and 20,000 pesos,” warns the investigator of the Violations and Misdemeanors Division.
Those that cannot be unlocked are destined for Paraguay, due to the facilities to avoid negative band blocking. But from what Clarín was able to find out, there is also the Peru route. Both are reciprocal: foreign reducers send phones stolen in Lima to Buenos Aires and their compatriots based in Buenos Aires those stolen in the city. It’s a barter.
Punguists vs. sweeping
At present, in the streets of Buenos Aires, punguismo is more of women than of men. In general, they are families that dedicate themselves to the same thing and that teach “the art”, as they call it, to the new generations.
The men “cover up”, that is to say, they stand at the level of the victim, so that other people do not notice the sequence, and the women “put their hand in”.
A robbery under the modality “kangaroo” in a bus.
There are those who are satisfied with the cell phone and those who are ambitious: they take the wallet, take out the cards and the ID and put it back in the wallet. Everything “in motion”, another specialty of the field.
The most sophisticated steal on Corrientes Avenue. They look for tourists, couples and spectators at the entrance and exit of theaters. And they attend massive events. They buy tickets like any fan of an artist. But they are going to steal cell phones.
Two weeks ago, Duki stopped a concert in Córdoba. The cry of a woman caught his attention. He wanted to know what was wrong with him. The fan had just noticed that her phone had been stolen. From the stage, the artist asked that he contact his staff to give him a cell phone.
“The snatchers are young kids,” says a City Police investigator. The profile description is divided into two. “You have kids on the streets or in a situation of consumption: they are the ‘kangaroos’ who rob you when the windows of the buses are open, or of the cars or who pretend to be window cleaners. They also rob passers-by,” he clarifies.
And he continues: “The others are more ‘kids jets’. They wear sports clothes and move around on a motorcycle. They are usually under or not over 21 years of age.” In a criminal raid ten or fifteen cell phones can be stolen.
The snatcher, unlike the punguist, may in his search for victims steal gold bracelets or chains. And he constantly comes and goes to sell to the reducer. From to a phone. Or from a chain. The punguista negotiates his “production” at the end of his day.
Those who steal the most are those who perform at massive parties. In one of rapper Ysy A’s shows at GEBA, for example, three Argentines aged 35, 26 and 25 were arrested. They were together. 41 phones were seized.
At the exit of a Bresh party, in Costanera, another detainee had 12 telephones. In each edition of Lollapalooza there are hundreds of reports of theft. At the least expected moment, it can happen to anyone. Like Iván, who even today curses that they have deceived him having been kind to the cause raised.
EMJ
