Global Courant 2023-05-14 14:00:23
Shootings are public. Someone records, others share, the video goes viral, reaches the WhatsApp numbers of the news and journalists come to the neighborhood to tell the news. What, in general, is not known, or is not counted, are the causes that generated the dispute. The beginning of the story.
The first scene of this plot takes place at a “crime scene” party. A former resident of the village Las Antenas, in Lomas del Mirador, meets “Chaki Chan”, the most notorious criminal in La Matanza. At least in recent years. And he asks, between drinks: “Where are you from?”, To later ask “take me to Las Antenas. Let’s win the neighborhood.”
A week before the shooting, “Chaki Chan”, who is called Nicolás Nahuel Guimil (29), and is recognized for settling in settlements in the municipality to manage drug dealing, walked through the town with what would be one of his partners in the business he planned to open. He did it during the day, in the afternoon, at dawn. During several days. His market study led him to decide on an area: the “middle”, as it is called in the town. It all happened in the last days of April.
“It is an area of corridors, which is practically impossible to enter on motorcycles or cars. Perhaps he thought that the patrolmen would have a difficult time getting to their bunkers,” explains one of the neighbors who recreates the story. The next step would be the most important in the business. “Chaki Chan” had to “capture” the neighborhood itself, and introduce himself to the neighbors and his competitors. That is, “activate”, as they say in the jargon.
Chaki Chan, the drug trafficker who tried to take over the Las Antenas neighborhood, in La Matanza.
Together with his gunmen (some say there were also women) he took a hostage, threatened a local drug dealer, threw a family out of their house and usurped their home, shot into the air and would have screamed, always according to the version of the neighbors consulted by Clarín, “I am ‘Nico Chaki Chan’. The neighborhood is mine.” Before leaving, he handed over weapons and drugs to the kids who stop “in the middle.” The next day his people would take care of withdrawing the collection. The territory was his. At least, that’s what he thought.
“But ‘the kids in the middle’ turned around,” says another neighbor. In the neighborhood vocabulary the term is synonymous with treason; of disobedience, of rebelling. Rumors from the village led them to make the decision. They said that “Chaki Chan” had been involved in more than fifteen homicides. That he would turn the village into hell. “Things are done here. We are not going to deny it,” the neighbors warn. “But at least those who sell drugs are known to us and one can go and ask them to stop selling to a family member. It is said that if you do that with ‘Chaki Chan’, it kills you.”
“Los pibes del medio” allied with the rest of the gangs of the town. They forgot old rivalries and, together with groups of neighbors not linked to the crime, agreed: “Let’s defend the neighborhood.” They organized themselves, armed themselves and waited for “Chaki Chan”.
On Tuesday, May 2, around 11:30 p.m., the “chakichaneros” entered the “middle” zone with long weapons. The shooting had at least one victim, the former neighbor of the neighborhood who had returned with Guimil. A criminal case was opened in the Fiscal Investigation Unit (UFI) 13 of La Matanza, by prosecutor José Luis Marioto.
Night in Las Antenas, the neighborhood of La Matanza where gangs and neighbors went to war against a drug trafficker who wanted to take over the place. Photo: Fernando de la Orden
The next night more shots were heard. “They fired from two motorcycles that moved behind the patrol cars. There was a shootout with the Police. And on Thursday a motorcycle passed by and they shot once,” those consulted by this newspaper detail.
On Friday the 5th, the first television mobiles appeared. And with the TV the Buenos Aires police and gendarmes approached. Since that day there were no more visits from “Chaki”. Nor of his people.
“But we are traumatized. Even the boys name it. These days were difficult. Sometimes someone jokingly said that they were entering the neighborhood and many of us ran into the houses. The order was to keep the doors closed to avoid usurpations,” the women agree. sources, while the neighborhood begins to return to normality. With a police presence that had never been seen before.
For a week, the organized groups placed garbage bags and all kinds of items in the corners, to prevent the passage of unknown cars or motorcycles. And “checkpoints” were set up in most of the streets: teams of between 6 and 8 people. Several armed themselves. To the point that in a tour of the Buenos Aires Police, at least one firearm was seized. The person carrying it and those accompanying them were arrested. “They ended up at the police station. They were released the next morning. They were beaten. Several were minors,” it is said in these streets of La Matanza, on Friday night.
On Wednesday, moments of tension were experienced again. But without the presence of the “chakichaneros”, as they are called in the neighborhood. A small group of those who were still in custody assaulted journalists from La Nación + and C5N, in addition to threatening them with weapons in hand.
In Las Antenas they do not deny the episode. Although they prefer to tell the positive of what they are experiencing: “The whole neighborhood came together so that no one would enter. Even neighbors who had stopped talking due to discussions or problems and gangs of kids who had shot each other. This calmed everything down. Because although it was always the internal sale of drugs, it was already being sold in full view of the kids. Now everything is much calmer,” says a woman.
Who is Chaki Chan?
Nicolás Guimil appeared for the first time in the chronicles of this newspaper, and of the main media, in 2011, when he was arrested in his place of upbringing, the Villegas neighborhood, in Ciudad Evita, La Matanza. At that time he was a minor.
He was not actually arrested. He turned himself in after a shootout and hostage-taking. During the negotiation, he spoke live on a newscast. “I am a 17-year-old boy. I’m not cursed, I don’t hurt anyone. I only hurt those who hurt kids, selling them drugs. And the Police are annoyed because they make arrangements with them”.
It is that “Chaki Chan” always defined himself as “anti-narco”, a figure in extinction in the suburban villas, who dedicated themselves to extorting and robbing those who sold drugs. Despite boasting of being involved in 16 homicides, he spent a few days in a juvenile institution.
In 2017 it made news again. She was 23 years old. “We arrested a dangerous criminal from the west zone. He was accused of 16 crimes and commanding a drug gang,” Cristian Ritondo (at that time Minister of Security) published on his Twitter account. In reality, Guimil had turned up and turned himself in at a police station, willing to prove his supposed innocence in a case for the sale of narcotics. He stated that he was engaged in buying and selling houses, that his father was a builder and had taught him the trade, and that it was a cause armed by a policeman who had demanded 500,000 pesos. In addition, he pointed out that he had placed more than fifteen cameras on the block from his house, tired of police extortion.
After spending nearly two years detained in Unit 17 of Urdampilleta, the Justice sided with him: he was acquitted and he regained his freedom. He does not register admissions to units of the Federal Penitentiary Service. In the Buenos Aires area he had some stays of less than a month.
His life is a mystery. Beyond the reports that he dominates the sale of drugs in different neighborhoods of La Matanza, so far no one has been able to prove these crimes. There are no images of him in the Las Antenas shootings. Clarín tried to communicate with the UFI that is investigating the case. “We cannot give information”, was the answer.
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