Buenos Aires Police chief arrested on charges of running extortion ring [View all]

[tenorly]

The Buenos Aires Police Commissioner General, José Potocar, was ordered arrested today by Municipal Pre-Trial Court Judge Ricardo Farías on charges of running an extortion ring that allegedly targeted local businesses as well as juvenile delinquents for protection money.

Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta had suspended Potocar and several officers in Station 31, located in the city's northside, on Saturday after City Prosecutor José María Campagnoli had requested a warrant for their arrest after former Commissioner Marcelo Stefanetti, arrested earlier on the same charges, pointed to them as the leaders of the extortion ring in sworn testimony.

Potocar denies the charges. Station 31 Commissioner Norberto Villareal failed to appear in court and remains at large.

Potocar, 58, was appointed less than four months ago. He was the first police chief named after President Mauricio Macri issued a decree last year subsuming the Federal Police, which been under federal purview since 1880, into the Metropolitan Police created by Macri during his tenure as mayor in 2008. The two forces were merged into a new City Police in November, and Potocar was sworn in January 1.

The extortion ring, according to Stefanetti's testimony, began when Potocar was in charge of the General Directorate of Police Stations (DGC). The ring operated out of two police stations in the upscale Núñez and Saavedra wards, and was allegedly used to extract monthly payouts from area businesses of between 1,500 and 3,500 pesos ($100 to $230) in the form of donations to the “Friends of the Police Station 31 Association.”

The ring also gleaned around 500 pesos ($30) periodically from trapitos - juvenile delinquents known for demanding money to "protect" parked vehicles (particularly near nightclubs). Potocar had made a public show out of stamping out the illegal practice during his brief tenure.

The city government, and Security Secretary Marcelo D’Alessandro in particular, came under fire for waiting until this weekend - and only after Campagnoli's warrant - to suspend Potocar and the officers involved, given that the investigation had begun months earlier. Their decision to put the officers on administrative leave was also questioned.

This was not the first police chief to be ousted for improprieties since Macri's right-wing PRO took control of the city government in 2007.

The first Metropolitan Police chief, Jorge "Fino" Palacios, was dismissed and arrested in 2009 after just two months after evidence surfaced of warrantless wiretapping and of politically-motivated searches of homes and businesses belonging to opposition officials as well as victims' rights advocates for survivors of the 1994 AMIA Jewish mutual society bombing. He was already under indictment for obstruction of justice related to the botched investigation of the bombing, which killed 86 and remains unsolved.

Macri, who was found to have ordered the wiretapping and searches, was himself indicted; but the case remained stalled in the courts and charges were dismissed within days after he took office as president 16 months ago.

At: http://www.thebubble.com/buenos-aires-police-chief-in-custody-on-corruption-charges/

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Sheriff Shakedown? Commissioner José Potocar. [center/]