The mayor of Rosario, paul jawkinaffirmed this Saturday that the recent threats in the Argentine city against Leo Messi and the attack on the premises of his in-laws could be a reaction of certain sectors of the security forces and not direct actions of drug gangs.
“I would not leave closed this fact in that it has to do with criminal gangs. In my understanding, the characteristics of this incident do not necessarily have to do with gangs, but probably with security forces,” the mayor said in statements on the radio.
The metal closures of the supermarket belonging to the family of Messi’s wife, Antonela Rocuzzo, located in Rosario, were shot with 14 shots at dawn last Thursday. In addition to the shots, a message dedicated to the captain of the Argentine team was found in the place: “Messi is waiting for you, Jawkin is also a drug trafficker, he won’t take care of you”.
Rosario -where Messi owns a house in a private neighborhood- is considered the city most affected by violence in Argentina, especially by the drug gang action.
Jawkin pointed out that the attacks that were recorded by security cameras and that have not yet been identified had gloves, covered face and elements for the attack on the motorcycle“nothing to do” with the profile of the protagonists of the usual criminal acts that take place in Rosario.
“This is an attack much more than public order. That the mayor of the city appear mentioned and that the name of Messi appears, which guarantees a worldwide impactand that he had not asked for money, it makes me understand that this was strange,” he observed.
“Here there was no incident against the Messi family or against the Rocuzzo family. There was no previous call or a request for money“He insisted in statements to radio Miter.
For this reason, he did not rule out that it is a “reaction” of police sectors in “resistance to changes that have to come” in the security forces after a new security minister took office in February in the province of Santa Fe, where Rosario is, and that on Tuesday there was a meeting in which the focus was precisely on police “omissions of controls” in the area where it was perpetrated two days after the attack.
Both federal and provincial security forces operate in Rosario. The mayor asserted drug trafficking “sometimes invades” the security forces and affirmed that a “systematic action of all powers and levels of the State” because “Drugs and weapons enter Rosario and every day criminal acts are recorded”