Lucas Escalante (26) and Lautaro Morello (18) were last seen in December in Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires province. Last year, 2 policemen were arrested and charged with murdering Morello after his burnt body was found a few days after the pair disappeared. On Monday, a third officer was arrested, accused of helping kidnap Escalante to collect ransom, who is still missing. 

The three officers in custody are Buenos Aires province police chief Francisco Centurión, charged only with the kidnapping, and officers Cristian and Maximiliano Centurión, who have also been charged with homicide aggravated by malice and premeditation in Morello’s case. Francisco is Cristian’s father and Maximiliano’s uncle. 

“According to the investigation, they lured Lucas to their house to kidnap him and ask for ransom, it was an extortion kidnapping”, Federico Schmeigel, director of the Corruption Control Program of the Provincial Memory Commission (CPM, by its Spanish acronym), told the Herald. When Escalante arrived, Morello had unexpectedly gone with him, and was allegedly murdered by the Centurión cousins.

The CPM is a plaintiff in the investigation. 

Escalante and Morello disappeared on December 9, 2022, in Florencio Varela. According to security camera and phone records, their last known location was in La Capilla, a rural town approximately 15 kilometers from Florencio Varela, where the Centurión family has a property.

What happened to Escalante and Morello?

On December 9, Lucas Escalante picked up his friend Lautaro Morello in his blue BMW to run an errand. According to text messages recovered from Escalante’s phone, Cristian had offered him free gasoline tickets, a bonus policemen have to fill up their patrol cars. Lucas and Cristian had met at a Florencio Varela gym and shared a taste for high-end cars. 

Investigators believe Lucas and Lautaro were kidnapped after they showed up at the Centurión residence in La Capilla. “The offer of free gasoline was just a decoy to get him there,” prosecutor Daniel Ichazo told the Herald. 

The main theory is that the Centurión family wanted to kidnap Lucas and ask his family for ransom money. Lucas’ father is a construction businessman “that handles a lot of money from public works in the area,” Ichazo said. 

“Something went wrong with their initial plan and then it became difficult to ask for ransom,” the prosecutor added. The main theory is that the Centurions were expecting Lucas to arrive alone. His blue BMW was found burned on December 10.

Investigators believe that Lucas was kidnapped for at least a month, but wasn’t kept in the La Capilla property the entire time. Cell phone antenna records show movement in the first days of his disappearance, and then in the Brandsen area, which is 30 kilometers from La Capilla. Lucas’ cell last emitted a signal on December 12. 

“From there, the trail is lost,” said Ichazo, who added that the Centurións’ phone’s geolocation was also turned off during several hours at a time on more than one occasion in those first days.

Morello’s body was found on December 15 near a highway under construction in Guernica, a southern suburb of Buenos Aires. It was partially burnt and in an advanced state of decomposition. According to the autopsy, he died of asphyxiation, but had previously suffered severe blows to the head and jaw.

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Security cameras caught Cristian Centurión filling a jerry can with gasoline at a gas station at half past midnight on December 10. A week after the disappearances, Cristian and Maximiliano Centurión were arrested.

According to the document ordering Francisco’s arrest, he “joined his son and nephew’s plan to keep Lucas Escalante captive for at least a month”. It also states that Lucas may have suffered a “violent death.”

Francisco was arrested at the La Capilla property, which has been searched several times to find leads. Investigators believe he was planning to go on the run, since they found new cell phones and thousands of dollars while searching the properties of people close to him.

He was removed from the BA province police force after the arrest, and refused to testify on Wednesday.

The Federal Police is currently conducting the searches, after the Buenos Aires province police was cast aside by Buenos Aires province Attorney General Julio Conte-Grand on suspicions of conducting a cover-up. During the time it was in charge in the first weeks after the disappearances, “the investigation was extremely sloppy,” Schmeigel told the Herald.

Florencio Varela police chief Sergio Enrique Argañaraz was arrested in April and charged with “leading a cover-up and investigation obstruction scheme during the first days” after Lucas and Lautaro went missing, Schmeigel said.

“There was a delay in the investigation and irregularities in the searches, which allowed the Centurión family to commit the crimes,” Schmeigel added.