The murder this Tuesday (10) in Colombia of the Paraguayan prosecutor Marcelo Pecci, who was on his honeymoon on the Caribbean island of Barú, seems to point to the participation of organized crime and will be investigated by several countries.
The crime took place in the morning on the island, which is about 40 minutes by boat from the tourist city of Cartagena de Indias, where Pecci, 45, was on his honeymoon with his wife, Paraguayan journalist Claudia Aguilera, with whom he had got married last April 30th in Asunción.
“Two men arrived on a boat, approached and shot at him,” Pecci’s wife told W Radio, adding that the prosecutor died after being shot several times on the private beach at the Decameron Hotel, one of the most popular in the coastal region of Cartagena and where the newlyweds were staying.
Pecci was a prosecutor specialized in combating organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering and the financing of terrorism in Paraguay, according to the Colombian Public Ministry, which has already sent to Cartagena “a team of prosecutors and specialists in criminalistics to take over investigative and clarify what happened”.
While there is no official information about the investigation, the Colombian press points out that it was an attack by gunmen, since there was no robbery, and the Colombian police sent five of their best homicide investigators to connect the dots about what happened, in addition to have requested the collaboration of Paraguay and the United States.
The couple even shared this morning on their social networks that they were expecting a baby, in addition to having published several photos of their honeymoon on this paradise island in the Caribbean.
According to Aguilera, her husband had not received any threats, despite being one of the best-known prosecutors in the country, charged with investigating drug, money laundering and organized crime cases.
high caliber cases
At the Paraguayan Public Ministry, Pecci participated in investigations into a shooting that took place in his country during the Ja’umina festival in January, in which two people died, including model and influencer Cristina “Vita” Aranda, wife of football player Iván. towers.
Some hypotheses about these events, which left four people injured, also point to an attack by gunmen due to a possible settling of accounts of drug trafficking.
Likewise, he was part of the Public Ministry team that intervened in 2020 in the process against Ronaldinho Gaúcho and his brother Roberto de Assis Moreira, for tampering with documents when entering Paraguay with false passports.
Pecci was also responsible for investigations into the murder of four people, including the daughter of the governor of the Paraguayan department of Amambay, Roland Acevedo, which took place in October last year.
The President of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, condemned the prosecutor’s “cowardly murder” and was emphatic in his position to fight “against organized crime”, which supports the hypothesis of intent behind the murder.
In later statements to journalists, the Paraguayan president promised to continue “in the fight against organized crime” and described what happened as “very painful, very difficult”.
For his part, Colombian President Iván Duque contacted Abdo Benítez “to contribute to the investigation of this fact and capture those responsible,” according to the Colombian Foreign Ministry.
The director of the Colombian police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, traveled to Cartagena to supervise the investigation of the crime and assured that they have talked “with the authorities of the United States so that they also join the team organized in Colombia and Paraguay to bring those responsible as soon as possible to justice”.
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