The links of the detainee Mariano Mera with the Boca and River bars: the story of the woman kidnapped by La Doce

Rafael Di Zeo is under investigation by the prosecutor of the case for the links of Mera Figueroa with the Boca bar (Photo: AFP)

At the end of last year, the government put a price on the head of Mariano Mera Alba Figueroa, the political leader of Peronism, son of Julio Mera Figueroa, former Minister of the Interior during the first presidency of Carlos Menem. For anyone who gave clues to his whereabouts, a reward of 1.5 million pesos was offered. He had fled in 2019 after being accused of sexual abuse, injuries and illegitimate deprivation of liberty with respect to Jessica R. And apparently, the monetary carrot worked: Mera Figueroa was arrested this morning in Francisco Álvarez and now he will have to face Justice, which he had evaded in the first oral trial where the case carried out in May of last year was aired, when two of his accomplices were sentenced to five years in prison and testimonies were also extracted for a disturbing fact: according to the prosecutor of the trial, Oscar Ciruzzi, endorsed by the magistrates of the Oral Court 10, it was determined that the kidnapping action was coordinated by the Boca brava gang and a process was opened to investigate Rafael Di Zeo and Norberto Cibile as alleged co-authors, the famous Turkish from La Boca, a key man in the neighborhood group referred to as La Doce. This case is processed by Judge Alejandro Litvack, although he has had almost no movements. The official explanation is the pandemic. But seeing how the causes involving the most famous barra brava in the country extend over time, there may be alternative explanations.

To understand the story, you have to go back years, when Jessica R.’s ordeal began, and you also have to understand Mera Figueroa’s conspicuous relationships with both the River bar, especially with the sector called Palermo, whose leaders ended up in prison with life sentences. for the murder of Gonzalo Acro, as well as with Di Zeo and company.

“The father of my daughters worked for Mera Figueroa when he was an advisor in the Merlo administration. They had found him a position, although he only went to the Municipality on the day he was paid, and then he spent his time doing politics. When we split up, he stopped giving me money and, desperate because I had to support my two daughters, I agreed to work for Mera at her house with the promise of a municipal job. And one day what happened happened. I reported him and went to live first with my grandmother and then in La Boca, where I was a friend of the Turkish, who led the group from the neighborhood of La Doce. I always went to the court with them, because he Turkish He handled the tickets, the turnstiles, he let us in for free. That’s how I got to know everyone at the bar. I never thought that they could deliver me, “Jessica told Infobae at the time.

But her hunch failed, she was kidnapped and the prosecutor believes that Di Zeo was key in presenting as evidence an exchange of Whatsapp with Mera Figueroa, where in one of those messages the leader of La Doce tells her: “Look, they were looking for her on the field and they didn’t see her, but if it’s not today, it’s Sunday.”

And finally it was, not on a Sunday, but on a Wednesday of the Copa Libertadores, on October 19, 2018, after the victory against Cruzeiro in the first leg of the quarterfinals. And so Jessica told it. “I found out that they handed me over when I was kidnapped. I knew that when the move started Rafa was asked about me and he said ‘I have no idea who he is’. Then they showed him a photo of the Turkish to tell him ‘he gets together with this guy and his people’ and Rafa asked them to bring it to him and they understood that it was the fundamental piece to do something to me. That closed what I experienced that night against Cruzeiro, which was the last time I stepped on the field, because they looked at me a lot, they came from behind where I was or from the paravalanches they marked me and I did not understand anything, but I realized that there was a wave like ‘it’s her, it’s her’. And then I found out that my photo was circulated by the group of the bar with the text ‘whoever sees it, let me know’. After they took me, I ended up in a house in Moreno where Mera appeared with a lawyer and they told me: ‘You say this, this and this and you go with the girls again (for their daughters) and nothing happened here.’ What’s more, Mera adds: ‘I spoke with Rafa and don’t even think about mentioning that Boca’s bar took you. I made a video for Facebook saying that you are fine, that you left on your own and if everything goes well, on Sunday Rafa will take you to the paravalanchas and stand next to him in the Superclásico (Boca-River was played that Sunday, October 23, 2018)”.

The truth is that after this the Police managed to rescue her, and finally there was a trial where the political leader was not tried because he had escaped and will have to answer now that he was captured. Now, where does Mera’s relationship with Di Zeo come from if the political leader was a fan of River? To understand it, you have to delve into the history of politics and the bars again. In the 1990s, when his father was Minister of the Interior, the relationship between Menemism, The Drunkards of the Plank (River’s brave bar) and The twelve it was constant. In fact, both bars, which boasted of fighting for the territory of soccer whenever they could, worked together in the political campaigns of Menem.

Both put the same banners of Justicialism in the stands and as the historical narrated hooligan to Infobae a year and a half ago, the menemismo at the time arranged first with him for the campaigns and later with the Galician Chofitol, another bar capo, to put up the flags, which generated a division within the gallery itself.

And in all this scaffolding, Mera Figueroa Jr. was a popular man whose relations with the violent were referenced in the Palermo group. This same group from Palermo that had members with relationships for common crime with Boca bars. In fact, Ariel the Colo Luna, Acro’s killer, went to the paravalanches several times with The twelve. To this is added that Boca’s own bar had made security and taken people to a lot of Menem’s acts, so Mera Figueroa’s arrival was two-way. And, according to Justice, he allegedly used those contacts at the time to kidnap Jessica R. Now he fell. And perhaps in the trial to come, even more clarity can be shed on the links between politics and the bars in general, based on this case in particular.

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