Global Courant
Capital Cordoba. Area with low houses in the center of the Mediterranean city. The owner, Jesica Elizabeth Clavijo (36), a company that sells fractional cleaning products, spins the plot with other, less honorable activities.
In the Bella Vista neighborhood, where he sold laundry detergent, bleach and fractionated liquid soaps, neighbors risked harsh comments. They said the owner would have some connection with the sale of narcotics.
It wasn’t the only talk investigators heard about who managed to arrest Clavijo, accused of being the leader of a gang that stole one of the most exclusive country houses in La Plata. On April 22 this year, according to the judiciary, they stole almost 80 million pesos in foreign currency, national cash, jewelry and weapons from the house of a meat businessman.
Clavijo made an extensive journey from Bella Vista, Córdoba, to Madrid, where she was arrested five months later. In the middle, he established a complex network with criminals from the south of the greater Buenos Aires area, where they stole cars and the millionaire’s safe from the gated neighborhood of 467 between 144 and 146 in the northern part of La Plata.
As the investigators from DDI La Plata, who worked on the case with the Federal Police and – later – in collaboration with Interpol, reconstructed, Clavijo stole, escaped with part of the loot and settled in the Spanish capital.
Prosecutor Virginia Bravo led the search process, which ended last week when she ended up in a National Police cell in Madrid.
The crucial starting point for this path was his image on the complex’s surveillance cameras. Clavijo was driving the Peugeot 208, which he used to enter the property with a false access card. His accomplices were inside.
His face was clearly visible. Bravo requested a comparative photo report from the Federal Police that matched 97.5% with the identity of the cleaning product seller.
The moment Clavijo comes in and rides in the car with the criminals.
The robbery of the businessman had clockwork precision. The woman’s accomplices went straight to the house they had targeted and reached the vault within seconds. It took minutes until the farm was empty.
In less than half an hour they completed the task, escaped by tearing down an entrance gate, and abandoned the Peugeot a few blocks later. They got into another one. Another surveillance camera caught her. The police found both vehicles. They were both stolen.
A “criminal investigation” task by the Buenos Aires command then began. Four agents (two men and two women) spent ten days in the capital, Córdoba.
They controlled the “front” – the cleaning sales – they monitored their contacts, they monitored their networks. They set their links. They have put together some tips to help them reach the band members who are from Buenos Aires.
Conclusion: I was not in Bella Vista preparing a trip. He organized the logistics to escape the country.
“How well will you have it in Spain, with what you have managed,” they could read on a tapped device. It was the news that confirmed the suspicions of the “moles” of the Buenos Aires police. With the donation and other evidence, Bravo applied to Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for Clavijo.
The gang leader evaded surveillance and escaped from Ezeiza on a Bolivian airline ticket. “The Interpol report was not active when it came out. “He got away from us for a few hours,” complained one of the officers who acted as bloodhounds for nearly two weeks.
Local agents lost track of him for more than two months. They had to content themselves with reading the international reports that Interpol sent them.
Until a week ago, the Bravo prosecutor’s office received a notice from Interpol: Clavijo had been arrested. They identified her during a police check in the Spanish capital.
The path of the elusive Córdoba cleaning products saleswoman, who founded a gang in the province’s suburbs and led a million-dollar heist in La Plata, has ended.
The coup at Grand Bell
The robbery in the best-guarded district of the provincial capital was of an expert nature. With surgical precision, the thieves entered Lot 190 after walking through the winding, half-lit streets. The looting of the safe lasted no more than ten minutes, as confirmed by the surveillance cameras in the house itself.
The entrance to Grand Bell, La Plata’s exclusive and gated private neighborhood. Photo Mauricio Nievas / Archive
There is still a suspicion that the logistics involved the collaboration of a person close to the businessman. Otherwise, the attackers would not have been able to find out that the chest in which the owner kept “his life’s savings” was behind a mirror in the dressing room of the upstairs bedroom.
The safe could only be opened with a fingerprint code, but it was locked. The investigators therefore assume that the gang had specific knowledge in order to be able to act quickly in such maneuvers.
Everything happened just a few meters from the house of the Minister of Social Development, Victoria Tolosa Paz, and the mayor of the city, Julio Garro, who have their private residences there.
The case could make news. Bravo hopes to reach the rest of the group members, which would basically be six. The four who entered the house while Clavijo was left in the “bell car” and two others who waited for them to begin escaping the house.
