A 24-year-old delivery worker was arrested last week in General Roca, Río Negro, for allegedly planning an attack as part of the transnational terrorist organization Islamic State or ISIS. Multiple security forces descended on the southern city of 100,000 inhabitants following a nine-month investigation into the suspect’s online activity. 

According to Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, he was in the “last stages of preparation” to carry out a terrorist attack. The accusations are based on his participation in “jihadist group chats” on WhatsApp and Telegram and distribution of “propaganda” on social media platforms.

Bullrich announced the arrest, which happened on January 9, on Tuesday in a press conference. She accused the suspect of being a “terrorist” linked to the Islamic State, highlighting his conversion to Islam and claiming the arrest prevented his planned attack. 

“This terrorist was part of a global network of hate and destruction,” Bullrich said, describing him as a “concrete threat against the safety of Argentines and national security.”

Navy police did not find guns, explosives, or any other weapons when raiding his house and only seized his phone. 

The man is being investigated for two crimes — participating in an organization or disseminating propaganda promoting “racial or religious discrimination” and belonging to a group aiming to “impose their ideas or fight against others by force or fear.” The sentence could be extended as the prosecution considers he could have committed acts to “terrorize the population or compel domestic public authorities or foreign governments or agents of an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.”

The minister explained that an investigation against the delivery worker began in March 2024 based on his social media activity. At the time, the Security Ministry’s National Directorate of Criminal Intelligence alerted the Specialized Prosecutor’s Unit for Organized Crime (UFECO) of the “existence of a person sharing and disseminating jihadist propaganda of the self-proclaimed Islamic State through social media.” Prosecutors from the ministry’s organized crime unit, the Navy Police, and the United States FBI cooperated in the digital surveillance that eventually led to the January 9 arrest. 

The suspect testified on Tuesday before Federal Judge Adrián González Charvay, who presides over the federal court in Campana, Buenos Aires province. The suspect allegedly held in-person meetings related to his “jihadist” activities in a mall in Escobar, which falls under that jurisdiction, although this has yet to be proven.