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More than three years after the called “Theft of the century”, this Friday, in the Third Court of Guarantee of Santiago, the formalization of the 16 accused for this fact, although the court rejected the application of preventive detention for most of the accused. Only one – who was caught with a firearm – was left with this precautionary measure, while three others were already in prison.
It should be remembered that 13 of the accused – including two security guards – were arrested last Monday while the other three were already in jail for different crimes.
Since The Public Ministry informed that they will appeal to the Santiago Court of Appeals to try to reverse the court’s decision for nine of the accused that were released.
The North Central Prosecutor’s Office formalized the defendants for the crimes of robbery in an uninhabited place, money laundering, illicit association, reception, illegal possession of firearms and fire, for the millionaire robbery happened September 18, 2017, when a group of people with their faces covered entered the money transfer company Esertval Ltda. -located in the commune of Independencia-, taking $ 15.8 billion.
After hearing the court’s decision, Marcelo Cabrera, deputy prosecutor of the North Central Prosecutor’s Office, stated that he was “surprised”, by holding that what “With the information that we were able to gather with the OS9 (Carabineros) team with whom we were working for a long time for many years, it seems to us that we reached a sufficient standard so that at the time we could prove the commission of various crimes, mainly an illicit association ”.
“We We were able to prove that they committed a series of crimes in this criminal plan, which had to do specifically with the cloning of license plates, the reception of automobiles, to ensure the success of this theft. Later there was burning of these vehicles and also coordination with two guards of the company “added.
It also indicated thatcredited the distribution of money among the gang leaders, which “translates into the purchase of various real estate, automobiles and different types of luxury utensils”, which, in the opinion of the Prosecutor’s Office, constitutes the crime of money laundering .
It complemented that The participation of all of the accused was exposed, from the formation of the band to the present.
“We still have the conviction that these crimes for which it was formalized had been committed and it seems to us that we were quite convincing with the court,” he said.
“We We are going to appeal, by the way, before the Court of Appeals, we are going to present the information that we believe is sufficient to account for this work together with the Carabineros, and we are convinced that at the end of this we will be successful in accounting for the commission of all these crimes ”.
Regarding the reasons that the head of the Third Guarantee Court had to reject the preventive detention, the prosecutor Cabrera indicated that “The magistrate at the hearing did not precisely detail the antecedents for which she did not give rise, but the information that she would have delivered has to do specifically with the fact that she did not prove that the illicit association had been formed (…) We believe that if there is sufficient information, for this and for this purpose, then she began to discard the other crimes that would have been committed in this context of the illicit association ”.
He even stressed that when they were arrested last Monday These 13 people were already plotting the realization of a new crime, so they were arrested before they managed to move forward with the new plan.
Of the 13 arrested on Monday, Cabrera explained that 10 of them were requested to be held in custody. “There were subjects of whom we did not ask for preventive detention, because they did not have the criminogenic behavior of the others. Regarding the rest, who were 10 people, one was in preventive detention and of the other nine it seems to us that we had sufficient information and indeed they were left with minor precautions “, stated.
According to the information provided by the Public Ministry, those allegedly involved in the incident planned the robbery in concert with the two guards who worked at Esertval. The doubts arose due to inconsistencies in the accounts of both workers, who gave erroneous and not very credible information when declaring as victims in the investigation.
Behind this, the defendants’ business turned towards the purchase of high-end cars and properties. In total, among all accumulated more than 100 vehicles and 37 homes, Besides the constitution of fake companies to triangulate moneyTherefore, the Public Ministry is also investigating them for the crime of money laundering.
