“What happened? Did Rexona abandon you?”, on October 2, a gendarme asked Maximiliano Ariel Acosta, a street vendor from Mar del Plata, in the province of Buenos Aires, in a sarcastic tone, who in a few hours became famous as “the man of the talc”. He had been detained minutes before at a border control in the province of Mendoza for carrying among his few belongings 18 bottles of powdered foot deodorant that the force mistook for cocaine.
“A lot of talc, not a lot of Efficient-e,” said Security Minister Patricia Bullrich on her long distance microphone. But the Gendarmerie quickly discovered him thanks to his nervousness and suspicious attitude. The security of our country is one step ahead of criminals! He makes them, he pays for them.” And he accompanied it with images of the cans as if they were a stash of drugs even though they were, in fact, talcum powder.
What Maximiliano remembers from that moment is different. He says he was neither nervous nor does he believe he had a suspicious attitude. The only thing he wanted was to return home and reunite with his family after having spent three months in the region for treatment for alcoholism under the supervision of the NGO Remar.
At 42 years old, Acosta decided to seek treatment for his alcohol addiction. He asked for help from the non-governmental organization whose way of operating consists of sending those who are treated to areas far from their environments to stop those links that may be conflictive. Three months later, tired of being in Mendoza, he wanted to return to Mar del Plata. The money he had was barely enough for the ticket and he decided to resort to what he knew: street vending. Through the NGO Remar I had contact with a supplier of products to sell on the street. He called him and asked him what he could do for him. The answer was talcum powder.
“The guy sold talcum powder. I don’t know if it’s original or not, but the bottles have an expiration date of 2027. It brings you what it has, so I started selling that,” Maximiliano explained to elDiarioAR. Once he had the merchandise, he walked around Mendoza a few times, undecided whether to spend a night in that province or take the first transportation that came out. He went to a hostel, but found it “creepy,” so he went to the terminal. It arrived at 7:20 p.m. and the next bus left at 8 p.m. “I didn’t have time to sell the powders, so I put them directly in my backpack and wanted to take them home,” he said.
145 kilometers from the city of Mendoza, the Gendarmerie controlled the bus in which Acosta was traveling. They searched his belongings and found the talcum powder. They thought it was cocaine. According to Maximiliano, they did some tests with reactive ampoules. They used several, only one changed color. Then, as they were not convinced of the result, they tried to reinforce the operation. “They called a truck with more blisters to continue testing. Afterwards, no other tests came back as positive. They simply grabbed the first piece of evidence that came out, they didn’t let me do anything at all, not talk, or watch what they were doing. They called two witnesses, truck drivers, who asked to do everything quickly because they had to leave. They didn’t record, they took my cell phone and continually threatened me saying that it was going to eat me for a few years,” he described.
“They were ecstatic. They were crazy and asked me if I was ‘Talco’. “They congratulated each other, they made jokes,” he added. “In the laboratory I asked them what they planned to do when they knew it was talc, but they wouldn’t let me talk. At that moment they sat me down suddenly and tightened the handcuffs. “They made fun of me and even invited me to fight.”
Maximilian’s journey changed scenery several times in a few hours. From the side of the road to a cell phone, from the cell phone to the laboratory and from the laboratory to Unit 32. “They released me suddenly, no prisoner wanted me because they said I was from Buenos Aires, when I told them that I was innocent, of course some did not like me. they believed. They could have done a lot of things to me, but thank God that didn’t happen. “I prepared myself for the worst,” he says.
21 days in jail and no apology
After 21 days, Maximiliano was told that the talcum powder was, in fact, not cocaine. The judge argued that “he could fail,” but according to Acosta, no one asked for forgiveness. He received his freedom, but remained imprisoned in Mendoza: his cell phone and the little money he had with him were under the power of Justice and he could not withdraw them until the next day. That’s how he left prison and onto the street, without his things, incommunicado or with a place to go. Another night of Maximiliano wandering. Finally Justice gave him a piece of paper, a kind of voucher, so he could take a bus but the stretch was only to Buenos Aires, so Maximiliano had to manage to get to Mar del Plata. This time he did contact his family, explained what had happened and they provided him with the necessary money.
Maximiliano has a partner and three children. In his house he has a small kiosk, which generates income that he complements with some sales on the street. He would like to have another, more formal job, but so far he has not been able to do so. His time in Unit 32 was the first experience of his life in prison, as he said. It was traumatic for him and he is still trying to recover. Due to the dynamics of the NGO, he is used to living in different parts of the country, in addition to being treated, he took it as the possibility of traveling and getting to know him. Now his strongest wish is to never return to Mendoza again. “It was too much,” he says. “They treated me like a criminal. Especially Gendarmerie. Bullrich mocked, celebrated before knowing what the truth was and that was their mistake, but those who acted worst were the gendarmes,” he insisted.
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