The investigation into the mysterious disappearance of five-year-old Loan Danilo Peña in Corrientes almost a month ago took a disturbing turn on Thursday as police sources said they had found child pornography on the mobile phone of the prime suspect in the case.
Court-ordered raids and probes on personal items owned by retired Navy captain Carlos Pérez, the husband of former municipal official María Victoria Caillava, found traces of deleted messages that included pornographic images of children.
There is no indication that any of the images are of Loan, who went missing one month ago close to the town of 9 de Julio in the northeastern province of Corrientes.
The forensic findings came from a Federal Police scan of 19 telephones via the UFED system, establishing the material as dating from last October to last month.
Pérez and Caillava, who were arrested a few weeks ago, have been remanded in custody as the investigation continues.
The forensic experts detected deleted messages and audios with photos of children appearing in the cache of the retired naval officer’s Internet browsers.
At the time of Loan’s disappearance Pérez had been visiting both adult and child porn websites, reported the Noticias Argentinas news agency.
Meanwhile the mobile telephone of Loan’s aunt Laudelina, now jailed in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires Province turned up 20 calls to Antonio Benítez in the afternoon and evening of June 13.
In other conservations one of her female friends tells Laudelina: “Say what you know and think of your children” while another says: “I smell a rat.”
The analysis of another telephone, yet to be identified, uncovered repeated Google searches for photos of murdered women.
These results are preliminary with analysis still continuing to locate the data geographically and cross the calls to see if eliminated content can be accessed.
Loan was last seen on Thursday, June 13, close to the town of 9 de Julio, near the district of Goya, Corrientes. The youngster had travelled out to the countryside with family members before sharing a lunch at his grandmother’s home. It was his first time visiting the home.
After lunch, Loan went off walking to an orange grove with three adults (his uncle and two friends) and three other children (his cousins). With the child eager to return to his house and see his father, the group lost sight of him and when they arrived, he was nowhere to be seen.
A large search operation failed to turn up any sign of Loan. Investigators, who initially treated it as a missing persons case, are probing lines of investigation that hint he may have been abducted and trafficked across the border into Paraguay.
Father travels to Buenos Aires
Loan’s father, José Peña, travelled to Buenos Aires on Thursday as he sought to garner greater attention for the case and plead with national authorities for help.
Despite the cold weather, hundreds of people demonstrated at the Obelisk in central Buenos Aires to demand that Loan reappear alive under the slogan “Devuelvan a Loan” (“Bring back Loan).
At one point José Peña fainted and had to be assisted by SAME emergency service before being taken to Argerich Hospital in an ambulance, SAME chief Alberto Crescenti told the press.
Prior to the demonstration, Peña – accompanied by the missing boy’s older brother – was received at noon by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich at the offices of her portfolio.
The minister told the distraught father that his “son must come back as alive as they took him away.”
“Some people are staying mum and seeking impunity,” Bullrich told a press conference following her meeting with Peña. “As a ministry we are deepening this investigation and we are involved.”
“There can be no deviation from the central point of who is responsible. We don’t want to give tools to those who want to distract attention from the case. We know that time has gone by and we got onto it late but our commitment is absolute,” she detailed.
Standing next to Peña, the minister empathised: “The family’s situation is difficult after so many days but I have the conviction that we’ll get to the bottom of this case. The family is already under guard.”
Asked about whether Peña would be granted a presidential audience as he requested, Bullrich replied: “The President is following the investigation and hoping for a happy ending but I cannot speak for him.”
Peña then spoke,saying: “For me Loan is alive and I want him back safe and sound,” before concluding by declaring his trust in the investigation.
Standing next to Peña, the minister empathised: “The family’s situation is difficult after so many days but I have the conviction that we’ll get to the bottom of this case. The family is already under guard.”
Asked about whether Peña would be granted a presidential audience as he requested, Bullrich replied: “The President is following the investigation and hoping for a happy ending but I cannot speak for him.”
Peña then spoke,saying: “For me Loan is alive and I want him back safe and sound,” before concluding by declaring his trust in the investigation. The family is collecting money to aid the search.
At the same time Corrientes Governor Gustavo Valdés was in the Casa Rosada to sign a public works agreement with Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos but cited the court secrecy of the Loan case to limit his statements but he described the culprits as “people of the province with national ramifications.”
Meanwhile José Peña’s lawyer Roberto Méndez spoke to the press during the meeting with Bullrich, saying: “You never give up hope” and “The Corrientes provincial police have behaved well, you cannot blame everybody for one inspector.”
– TIMES/NA/PERFIL