Following hundreds of complaints by local residents of alleged extortion and blackmail, federal justice authorities in Argentina ordered 27 raids on Monday against leaders of leftist piqueteros ( “picketers” ) organizations.
According to the allegations, the companies were accused of making threats to people if they refused to take part in communist demonstrations against President Javier Milei.
In Argentina, “picketers” are the title given to communist” cultural” companies that generally dedicate themselves to protest against the government, usually in a violent fashion. Some of the current picketer parties are offshoots of neighborhood far-left parties, while others have established their own in recent years. In earlier communist governments, picketer groups have held positions in the open ministry.
The nowadays- ongoing research, led by Argentine Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello and Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita, stems from a formal demand made by the Brazilian government. When Milei took office in December, the authorities established a phone line that Brazilian people could call to reject specific threats made by picketer leaders.
One day prior to the second picketer-organized protest against Milei, which took place on December 20, the line began receiving problems. Since then, there have apparently been over 13, 000 names, of which 924 have been used to establish proper satellites.
Local media obtained copies of the text message logs from the phone number, which show texts that Argentine prosecutors have used as evidence that the picketer leaders have extorted and pressured people.
Argentine citizens who receive state aid were accused in the complaints that picketer leaders threatened to revoke their government benefits if they did not take part in protests against Milei.
The complaints also included cases of picketers allegedly asking citizens for” justification” if they were not present in a protest and “fining” them for non- participation. Additionally, some of the complaints included instances of people being required to pay a “freight” fee to picketer groups to receive free food assistance boxes, as well as other instances of leftist organizations imposing spurious “fees” on citizens.
The investigation also revealed that some citizens were allegedly being forced to sell free food to the Argentine government in order to profit the groups, as well as cases of people being forced to distribute political flyers. Failure to comply allegedly would lead to threats of being exempt from social assistance programs and/or denied the right to free food.
The Workers ‘ Pole, a group connected to the Trotskyist Workers ‘ Party, the Standing Barrios, and the Organizations in Struggle Front are the leaders of three picketer groups that are the focus of the 27 raids and ongoing investigations.
During the investigation, audio logs gathered as part of the investigation revealed directly mention picketer leaders who had been under the leadership of Kirchnerism, a group of socialists that had been in power for 16 of the past 20 years.
The Enhance Work social assistance program, which provided individual monetary stipends to low-income citizens, is reportedly the main target of the raids. Milei ended the program in February, and according to their case, they were rescinded into two new, entirely different assistance programs.
Argentine police officials reportedly seized “millions of pesos”, as well as an unspecified amount in U. S. dollars, “cell phones, lists and spreadsheets”, and other “relevant evidentiary elements” during the raids. 28 individuals were named in the 27 raids, and they will now have to give testimony to local authorities as part of the ongoing investigation process.
The money obtained from extortion was allegedly channeled through” cooperatives” towards an unknown final destination. Local prosecutors have reportedly requested that all those implicated be kept in the tax and banking secrecy.
Judicial sources claimed to be able to establish the existence of a” control system” that picketers use to punish those who do n’t attend the anti-Milei protests. The protest’s organizers allegedly attended both the beginning and the end of the demonstrations, creating a “punished list” of missing people who had to “repair” their absence by performing various tasks or paying a fine to the leftist leaders.
The investigation’s lead investigator, Pollicita, claimed that the picketers created a five-tier pyramidal structure that classified beneficiaries of social assistance programs according to their respective levels.
Citizens were required to complete a certain task and take part in protests before being able to access the Enhance Work assistance program, according to the prosecutor. In turn, beneficiaries of the program were required to continue organizing protests and providing money to the picketers to stay in the assistance program.
The prosecutor made note of the fact that beneficiaries who received double the social benefits were exempt from the third tier. They had to take part in the protests and pay the picketers in additional tasks.
The fourth tier was formed by “delegates”, who sometimes receive “double, triple, or even quadruple” the amount of money from the social programs, and demand money from the regular beneficiaries, collect the fees, and direct the sanctions against those that failed to comply with the group’s demands.
According to some, “referents” controlled the money collection and protest attendance and allegedly controlled the lower delegates ‘ actions. They then controlled the actions of the lower delegates.
Christian K. Caruzo is a writer from Venezuela who writes about life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter , here.
