Global Courant
The Pantheon VI is almost in the heart of the Chacarita Cemetery. There, in niche 9,075, in row 2 of gallery 22, is the body of the financier Miguel Ángel Graffigna (42), killed by a bullet to the head inside the Peugeot RCZ exactly 10 years ago, on the afternoon of June 7. of 2013.
Grave 6, from plank 3, in block 2 of section 12, is very close to the crematorium. It is a sector of uneven graves, many of them neglected, or directly abandoned, where many homeless people end up. The businessman Alfredo Pesquera (46) is buried there, who committed suicide with a bullet to the head on December 20, 2013. The cross on which his name is read was placed by the cemetery, and it shows that it was recycled.
Between one tomb and the other there are about 150 meters. Both dead are linked by a violent and complex story: Pesquera -a character who became known for starring in the road accident in which “El Potro” Rodrigo Bueno and Fernando Olmedo died, in June 2000- killed Graffigna because he was demanding a debt to his boss, kick boxer Jorge “Acero” Cali.
Alfredo Pesquera, during the trial for the death of Rodrigo “El Potro” Bueno.
When the Justice discovered that Pesquera had been the murderer of Graffigna, the prosecutor Paula Asaro requested his arrest. It was December 20, 2013 and the news immediately ended up all over the news.
A day later, his body was found by his lawyer in front of the house he shared with his girlfriend and her three children on Ramallo Street at 3300, in Parque Saavedra. He was in the back seat of his luxurious black BMW X6. He had shot himself in the head with the same 40-caliber Tanfoglio pistol with which he had killed Graffigna months before.
With Graffigna and Pesquera dead -in a framework of debts, check cashing, dollars and possible money laundering-, the only one capable of providing clues or being investigated in this regard turned out to be “Acero” Cali, Graffigna’s boss and Pesquera’s creditor. But Cali first denied all but any contact with Pesquera (“I saw him once because he came to cash checks,” he said) and ultimately died of cardiac arrest in October 2021.
Miguel Ángel Graffigna was killed by Pesquera inside his Peugeot RCZ.
the two deaths
Homicide and suicide occurred 10 years ago and many have already forgotten the case, which, however, has unrepeatable details. The last of them, the rarely seen fact that the victim and perpetrator ended up buried a few meters away.
They are close, but apparently they did not leave the same memory among their loved ones.
Graffigna’s niche is taken care of. It has a photo of him surrounded by little angels, his name polished by him, the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a Virgin of Luján. Pesquera’s tomb is only identified by a wooden cross with his name and it is one of the crosses that the cemetery itself places.
The niche where the remains of the financier Miguel Ángel Graffigna (42) are, assassinated by the businessman Alfredo Pesquera. Photo: Alejandro Bar
What’s more, after committing suicide, Alfredo Pesquera’s body spent two years in the Supreme Court morgue. Neither his ex-wife (mother of his son, with whom he had a terrible relationship) nor his last partner showed up to pick him up.
This woman, a psychologist with whom he had lived for two years, would have been the last person who spoke to him: on the afternoon of December 20, 2013, Pesquera asked him to take his three children from the common house on Ramallo street ( all children from a previous marriage of hers) so that they would not see him when the Police took him away in handcuffs. When they ran into the house that afternoon, she noticed him nervous, but normal.
Finally it was Juan Domingo Pesquera -one of the brothers of the deceased- who submitted the request to remove the body, hold the funeral and cremate it. He submitted the formal request on December 17, 2014 (almost a year after the suicide).
Alfredo Pesquera’s brother requested the delivery of the body for cremation, almost a year after his death.
After the judicial fair in January, they replied that there was no problem in taking it away, but that they could not cremate it. Finally Pesquera was buried in December 2015.
Due to the state of the grave, it seems that no one is going to visit his grave.
The arrest warrant against Alfredo Pesquera.
crossed lives
Both Alfredo Pesquera and Miguel Ángel Graffigna had a complicated past in Justice.
Graffigna had been arrested in 2011 for the bloody crime of a swinger couple that occurred in 2004. He was imprisoned for three months, accused of torturing and killing Nicolás de Sousa (28) with a gun and of suffocating his girlfriend, Antonieta Zárate (29), to steal a painting by Pablo Picasso whose existence could never be proven.
Pesquera was found inside his BMW. Clarin Archive
Finally, he was dismissed, as was his ex-wife, the exotic dancer Iddon Silva, with whom he would end up having a terrible relationship.
The tensions between Graffigna and Silva over possession of their daughter, and the woman’s alleged ties to a Mexican drug trafficker, convinced the financier’s family in 2013 that she was behind his murder. However, the Justice proved that the murderer had been Alfredo Pesquera.
The pistol that Pesquera used to kill the financier Miguel Ángel Graffigna and shoot himself in the head.
Pesquera also had its own history in the Courts. The most notorious case in which he was involved was the death of the quartet singer “El Potro” Rodrigo Bueno, which occurred on June 24, 2000 on the Buenos Aires-La Plata highway.
The businessman was acquitted, although the Prosecutor’s Office always maintained that the musician overturned because he locked him up on purpose with his truck.
This is how the truck in which Rodrigo Bueno was traveling was left. Clarin Archive
His lawyer in that trial was Fernando Burlando, one of the last to receive a message from him a few hours before he committed suicide. “Everything went wrong. I’m not up for another round like Rodrigo’s. Take care of my baby,” Pesquera wrote in an email.
In 2001 – in the middle of the investigation into the accident – Pesquera had been arrested, accused of repeated fraud. The judge of La Plata Carmen Palacios Arias ordered his capture in the framework of a case opened two years earlier for the fraudulent sale of cars.
Graffigna’s car, a Peugeot RCZ. Clarin Archive
In that file he was dismissed, but he had problems with the Justice again in 2007. At that time he was accused of attempted fraud in the purchase of a property in Capital that was in succession.
The relatives of a man who died in 2003 denounced that through false documents – like a forged power of attorney – Pesquera had bought the house. The businessman then tried to mortgage it but was unsuccessful, and for this reason he ended up being prosecuted for attempted “fraud”.
Alfredo Pesquera, when he was tried for Rodrigo’s death.
During his life he did not make great friends.
His ex-wife wanted nothing to do with him and his girlfriend was left in a very bad financial situation after his death. He even had to move elsewhere with her young children to reduce expenses.
The sketch of how they found businessman Alfredo Pesquera inside his car.
Sources in the case said that, some time before, this woman legally divorced her husband, collected money for the sale of a house they shared and gave it to Pesquera. The money is gone. And also the part that corresponded to her ex-husband, who suffered a suspicious leak after completing the real estate transaction.
Pesquera was not a very loved person, nor was she a very trustworthy person, as Graffigna discovered. The Justice rescued several emails in which the financier claimed from his “friend” the debt he had with “Acero” Cali.
Jorge “Steel” Cali. Pesquera owed him money. He died of cardiac arrest in October 2021.
“Hi Alfredo. Do not fail and today send the 50 thousand to the club. And give them to Pablo. Next week you hand over the apartment, I’ll let you know. Collect the 9,500 for deliveries. Hug”, Graffigna wrote to Pesquera by email on April 26, 2013, referring to the Primera Junta club (Lavalle 3461), owned by “Acero” Cali.
It is the same place where a raid was carried out in May of that year on suspicion that a clandestine casino and a brothel were operating there.
The white van that Pesquera was driving when he locked up Rodrigo on the Buenos Aires-La Plata highway. Clarin Archive
“And Alfredo? We are coming back. Do not make Jorge arrive at the club and the money is not there ”, Graffigna insisted shortly after.
Pesquera replied on May 14: “Hi Miguel. I have the money you lent me on Thursday. If you want, I’ll stop by tomorrow before 1 pm and we’ll talk personally about two more issues”.
But everything ended badly.
According to the GPS of Graffigna’s car, on June 7, 2013, he stopped by Pesquera’s house to talk and insist that he pay. Instead of answers and payment of the debt, he found himself shot in the face with a 40 caliber bullet.
EMJ
