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Five days after the victims were allegedly lured into a vehicle thinking they were going to a party, their bodies were found with evidence of various violent, torturous injuries.
Two women and a teenage girl fell on the wrong side of what police believe was an international drug trafficking gang in Argentina, resulting in their heartbreakingly brutal deaths, which were reportedly "broadcast live on social media."
Police in Buenos Aires said that approximately 45 people were watching live in a closed group as cartel members tortured, raped, and ultimately murdered their three victims, according to the UK's LBC.
The victims, identified as Morena Verdi, 21 (above left), Brenda del Castillo, 20 (above middle), and Lara Gutierrez, 15 (above right), were last seen on Friday getting voluntarily into a car, with police determining they'd been falsely invited to a sex party, according to local media reports, and offered the approximate equivalent of $300 U.S. each to attend, per police.
Buenos Aires’ security minister Javier Alonso spoke to the media on Wednesday and stated that the trio was "falling into a trap" as the gang had "hatched a plan to kill them" at a property 20 miles from their home in the suburb of Varela, according to the Economic Times.
They were purportedly targeted, according to local media cited by The U.S. Sun, after two of them were accused of stealing four kilos of cocaine from the drug trafficking gang. This detail remains under investigation.
The fact that their murders were livestreamed, Alonso argued, is a key part of their investigation, as "it is relevant to the motive for the murders, which is that the leader of the gang is saying: 'This is what happens to you if you steal drugs from me.'"
Calling it a "narco act of revenge," detectives argued that the kingpin of the gang ordered the torture and murder of the three to be livestreamed as a "deterrent" to others. Police further said that they've ID'd the man in charge, who they described as a Peruvian national who they believe has fled the country.
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View StoryFive days after they went missing, the bodies of all three victims were found "in a garden" at the property where they are believed to have been killed, according to Alonso. Each had evidence of different injuries suggestive of the torture they were forced to endure. Police believed that they were killed between 11 p.m. and midnight on Friday night.
When their bodies were discovered, Gutierrez had all five fingers from her left hand cut off, while Del Castillo was found with a fractured skull and her stomach cut open. Verdi had reportedly been asphyxiated with a plastic bag, which was still over her head when the bodies were discovered.
When police raided the "horror house" where the murders took place and the bodies were later found, they said they found two women in the process of cleaning the property. "The drug trafficking organization has its operational command in Buenos Aires, and they had chosen this house to carry out the murders," Alonso explained, per The Sun.
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View StoryInvestigators said that after carrying out the livestreamed torture and murders, the gang set the vehicle used to transport the victims on fire. The burnt-out shell of the vehicle was parked about 330 feet from the house.
One Buenos Aires prosecutor said, per The Daily Express, "This is the most sordid and horrifying case we have ever had to deal with," as Alonso assured the media, "Our investigation to apprehend the intellectual and material authors is very advanced."
According to LBC, police arrested four individuals on Wednesday, including the two women found cleaning. The suspects include three Argentinians, aged 18, 19, and 28, as well as a Peruvian, 27. The outlet says that police were holding eight additional suspects overnight, though they have not been formally arrested.
