Three foreign men were detained in Argentina on Saturday, accused of planning a terrorist attack. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said the operation was based on intelligence information from the United States and Israel, with the government working to identify the suspects.

According to what Bullrich said in a press conference outside the Ministry on Wednesday, the three men were detained in three different places, one of them at an airport. The other two were arrested in Microcentro and Avellaneda: they are allegedly linked to the shipment of a 35-kilogram package from Yemen of unknown contents the Ministry was tracking.

“Intelligence information provided by a conjunction of elements from both the United States and Israel was obtained, as was information received by a member of the military police — who is trained in counter-terrorism— from his peers in Colombia,” Bullrich said.

In an X thread published on Wednesday titled “We neutralized the arrival of a potential terrorist cell into the country,” the Security Minister said that the arrests were made by the Federal Police. The post said that the National Directorate of Criminal Intelligence and the Airport Security Police carried out the investigation.

A press release by the Security Ministry released on Wednesday morning said that the three detained men were of Syrian and Lebanese origin and that one of them was carrying Venezuelan and Colombian passports in his name. An hour earlier, when asked if some of the detainees were Syrian, Bullrich said that she wouldn’t “give identities or names.”

“We do not know if the names are real, because there are fake identities, forged passports,” Bullrich said.

The Herald contacted Bullrich’s press team for clarification but received no response.

The minister added that the Ministry is on high alert due to the Pan-American Maccabiah Games being held in Buenos Aires. She said President Javier Milei suggested she pay “special attention” to the security of the event due to the Israel-Gaza war.

Bullrich added that she was worried because the hotel in which the three detained individuals were going to stay “was two blocks away from the Israeli embassy,” which suffered a suicide bombing on March 17, 1992. 22 civilians were killed and 242 others were injured.

The Security Ministry did not provide further context behind the arrests or the terrorist attack the detainees were alleged to be planning.

Information on the case is confidential since it is under judicial secrecy. A source told the Télam news agency that the three detainees were questioned on Monday afternoon in the federal courts of the Retiro neighborhood. All three denied having any link with the alleged plotting of a terrorist attack. When asked if any of them had an international arrest warrant, Bullrich said no, but that they could be using a fake name.

 “If a person has a Syrian passport, a Colombian passport, and a Venezuelan passport, and enters with different passports, what is the real identity? What is the nationality?” she asked.

The detentions were ordered by the National Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 1, headed by Judge María Servini.