It caught no one's attention in Arroyo Leyes, a rural area located 30 kilometers from the city of Santa Fe, in Argentina, which At night, a nursery was illuminated with powerful lamps that served to heat the cannabis plants.. In the property managed by Gabriel Nudel, detained this Wednesday, Barrabrava de Colón, who was guarded by armed men, did not care about the energy consumption, because they were hooked to the cables of the Provincial Energy Company (EPE).
The images recorded by the investigators of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA) show that in the middle of the darkness the nursery, which has an area of four hectares, It is full of lamps that are used to give heat to the plants at night.
Panoramic of the raided nursery.
Federal prosecutor Walter Rodríguez, in charge of the investigation that ended with Nudel's arrest, will request a report from the EPE – as confirmed by judicial sources to La Nación – to determine if there was any type of complicity in the company, in which these maneuvers to steal energy would not have been noticed. And it will add to Nudel one more crime for illegally connecting to the energy cables of the state company.
After discovering the clandestine connection that was used in the nursery, a report will be requested from the EPE to explain the omissions incurred.
“After discovering the clandestine connection that was used in the nursery, a report will be requested from the EPE to explain the omissions incurred, and describe the terms in which excessive consumption occurred in the area where the property is located. “, explained the sources consulted.
In a four-hectare field on the outskirts of Santa Fe, a cannabis nursery operated with a legal screen. It is the first maneuver of this type that has been discovered since the production of cannabis for medicinal use was authorized.
That property was in the name of another person, but – according to the investigation carried out by the PFA – it was managed by Nudel, a barrabrava from Colón, with strong links with other drug traffickers heavyweights from Santa Fe, among them, Vicente Pignata, who is currently a fugitive.
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At the door of the property where the cannabis crops were located there was a sign, with a QR code, that if someone registered it with their phone, it would connect them with the data of a representative, who appears registered in the National Seed Institute. For the researchers, this was a screen for the production in large quantities of marijuana on four hectareswhich served to illegally supply the main cities of Santa Fe and other provinces, including Córdoba.
![QR codes](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2021/12/19/61bfb3faea740.jpeg)
At the door of the property where the cannabis crops were located there was a sign, with a QR code.
According to sources from the investigation told La Nación, the first chapter of this story, which has as its protagonist to Nudelwas written in January 2023, when at a National Gendarmerie post on Route 19, which connects Santa Fe with Córdoba, they seized 500 kilos of marijuana in two vehicles, whose documentation included a first cousin of Nudel.
That shipment, which was destined for the province of Córdoba, is presumed to have come from the cannabis farm that the Colón barrabrava, from the La Negrada sector, had set up in Arroyo Leyes, where PFA agents seized several weapons, which They used to guard the place.
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When the FPA agents entered the property, by order of prosecutor Rodríguez, after previously carrying out intelligence tasks, they came across a cannabis “factory”, which had a legal facade. The thing is that the person who appears as the owner, who is a fugitive, appears as a producer of that narcotic in the National Seed Institute and in the National Registry of Patients in Treatment with Cannabis (Reprocann), which was created through decree 883/ 20, which regulates Law No. 27,350, on “Medicinal Use of the Cannabis Plant” and its derivatives. What is presumed is that the cannabis that was produced did not have a medicinal use, but rather the illegal marketing of the narcotic.
![Cannabis](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_vertical_content_new/uploads/2021/01/04/5ff364559b4c8.png)
According to the researchers, If the documentation were legitimate they could only produce nine plantswith the possibility of duplicating that number jointly with another registered person.
The surveillance carried out by Federal Police agents located Nudel in that nursery several times a week, where there are a large number of plants, which in two plots reached almost two meters in height.
Inside the property, the police inspected two houses and a warehouse, where they preventively detained five people who were inside. In addition, they seized an arsenal: two 9 millimeter caliber pistols, one Taurus model G2 and another Browning; a Colt model 1987 caliber 11.25 without numbering; a long double-barreled shotgun model Chamber A680 with no serial number visible; a bulletproof vest, various communication equipment, ammunition, cards, identity documents and documents of interest to the file. The sources indicated that this type of weaponry that was used to guard the property gave certainty that it was not a legal undertaking. Added to this was that one of those who managed it was Nudel.
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![Rolex Cartagena gun](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2022/11/16/637505c71f036.jpeg)
Inside the property the authorities seized an arsenal: two 9 millimeter caliber pistols, one Taurus model G2 and another Browning; a 1987 Colt model, among others.
Provided by authorities.
Before entering the property, which is located on land that has a sign that says “Rincón Potrero Soccer School”PFA detectives arrested Nudel in the South neighborhood of the capital of Santa Fe, aboard a burgundy Toyota Hilux truck.
Nudel has an extensive history linked to drug trafficking in Santa Fe, linked to a mysterious character, such as the fugitive Pignata, a middle-class man who became one of the main drug suppliers in Santa Fe and then disappeared. Currently, he has an arrest warrant from Interpol, but there are also strong versions that he could be dead.
Pignata's name reached the media in a massive way, when it was learned that he had rented a house in a country that was in the name of the basketball player Carlos Delfino, former player of the so-called Golden Generation, who in 2019 was prosecuted for alleged money laundering of the drug trafficking.
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At that time the measure was taken by federal judge Francisco Miño, after an investigation carried out by prosecutor Rodríguez, who now ordered Nudel's arrest. This cause also reached the father of the athlete Carlos Gustavo Delfino, and Elisabet and Ramón Campos, who would have been linked to Pignata.
On October 29, 2014, the company Parmery Trading SA, which appears among the companies in the Panama Papers, entered into a contract – a “free loan” – in favor of the former Houston Rockets player for 95 years of a house in the country El Santa Fe Pass. Eight days later, the shell company Parmery Trading transferred the “general power of administration” to the basketball player's father, who is a real estate broker.
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Three years later, on November 9, 2017, Carlos Delfino informed the administration of the El Paso country, which is located on the outskirts of the capital of Santa Fe, that he would hand over unit 343 to Elizabet Campos, wife of Pignata, the fugitive drug trafficker. That property would have sold for about $500,000.
The prosecutor pointed out that Delfino father and son “transferred the simulated contractual conditions in favor of Campos and Pignata, since they put in their hands effective and sufficient engineering to introduce money from drug trafficking into the market under the appearance of legality.”
Later, Rodríguez warned that “although (Delfino father and son) had no connection with the previous drug trafficking maneuver, They would be aware that the money used by Pignata and Campos in the acquisition of the property would be of illegal origin”.
Nudel was not only linked to Pignata, but also to people who paid tribute to this drug trafficker as a front man, such as Jonatán Fernández, known as Colo in the Chalet neighborhood. This man was arrested in 2019 in Sao Tome. Fernández is Pignata's son-in-law, who sold drugs on a large scale in that province along with his partner. He was in charge of distribute the narcotic throughout Santa Fewhile his soldiers were in charge of the exchange.
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La Nación (Argentina) / GDA
AMERICA GROUP OF NEWSPAPERS
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