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That morning,
like all summer mornings,
I was getting ready to go fishing.
There was a road I took every day.
And, suddenly,
we saw four or five people and a car with smoke coming out of it.
I didn't think it was anything unusual. A car had caught fire, so I kept going.
I stopped a moment, didn't ask questions, and left.
JANUARY 25, 1997
At about 6:00 p.m.,
I came back the same way.
And then there weren't just three people.
There were helicopters.
There were a lot of police cars.
So I asked what had happened.
BUENOS AIRES GOVERNOR
They came and said
someone had died.
And they told me they'd killed
Cabezas.
A journalist had been killed.
Immediately, I realized the magnitude
of what had happened.
An event that's really shrouded in mystery.
A Ford Fiesta had caught on fire…
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
…apparently with a body inside it.
It was in a ditch.
The Inter American Press Association has condemned
the murder of a journalist from the Argentine magazine Noticias.
The photographer José Luis Cabezas was murdered this weekend,
and his Argentine colleagues suspect the murder has political connotations.
The national government is being called upon
to clarify what happened to José Luis Cabezas.
Such a heinous event is unbelievable.
Justice!
-Cabezas! -Here!
Cabezas! Here!
You're going to testify, Ríos. What will you tell the judge?
There's no indication this couldn't happen again.
This is a turning point.
This is one of the darkest events in national history.
How do you feel being linked to the murder?
What would you say to the Cabezas?
Yabrán is a businessman like any other.
Mr. Yabrán is a Mafia leader.
They're criminals.
It's like a gangster movie over here.
The car is completely burned.
Surely it's been deliberately put there and then set on fire.
My mind perpetually goes back to that summer in '97.
Those scars stay with you your whole life.
JOURNALIST
Honestly, no one is prepared in any way for something like that.
I was José Luis Cabezas' coworker at the magazine Noticias.
We were the team that covered the summer in Pinamar.
And that made us more than colleagues. We became friends.
Pinamar is more than just a mix of trees, sand, and sea.
Pinamar is trying to be the fashion mecca on the Argentine coast.
Pinamar in the '90s was a synthesis
of what was happening with national politics.
There was a very clear frivolity encouraged by the president, Carlos Menem.
A system of space flights that will go to the stratosphere.
And from there, in an hour and a half, we can be
in Japan, Korea, or anywhere in the world.
Being in politics meant showing off your Ferrari,
belly dancing with an odalisque.
PHOTOJOURNALISM RESEARCHER
It was showing off power
and the fascination with consumption and flashiness.
Jet set mixed with politics.
Pinamar was unique in that it was where, every summer,
political deals and negotiations took place.
It's where the main figures of Menemism went.
If, between interviews and negotiations, there was time to go to the beach,
politicians chose the exclusive CR Beach Resort.
Pinamar was one of the most beautiful resorts on the coast.
We journalists liked to go.
Pinamar was a tribute to life.
We enjoyed the beaches and the place.
BUSINESSMAN
We had a group of great friends out there in Pinamar.
On January 24, 1997…
Hi. How are you?
…we were having a party for Oscar Andreani,
which was a very important party,
very characteristic of Pinamar,
because they really liked fireworks.
We had so many friends
that we figured, "Let's make the party a little bigger."
Let's say, more extensive.
I realized the party had gone much further than I thought.
It had practically become one of Pinamar's biggest parties.
And we covered it.
José Luis took pictures, and I saw who was there.
We were together the whole time.
Around 4:00 a.m.,
I told José Luis, "Look. I wanna go."
I asked him what he wanted to do.
He said, "No, I wanna stay." He was having a lot of fun there.
I gave him the car keys,
and that was the last time I spoke with José Luis.
I remember at that time, it was around 5:00 a.m.,
I passed by José Luis Cabezas.
I was going up, and he was going down the stairs to leave.
We didn't say anything because we just passed each other.
He says, "Spectacular!"
JANUARY 25, 1997
On January 25th,
we planned to do some scouting around 2:00 p.m.
First, I texted him because he hadn't arrived at 2:00.
He was very punctual. I called his house.
José Luis's mother-in-law told me not only is he not there,
but he hadn't come back since I picked him up last night.
I said, "What do you mean?"
Yes, I started to worry, and I said, "What happened here?"
The first thing I did was call our colleagues.
Then I found out that José Luis left Andreani's house at 5:10 a.m.
I called the hotel where we had our office.
Nobody knew anything.
So I told our friends,
"Let's go to the hospital to see if there was an accident or something."
The hospital in Pinamar.
We're driving through the city,
and before getting to the hospital, we go by the police station.
MAP OF PINAMAR
I see the Pinamar police chief, Alberto Gómez.
So I get out of the car
and say, "Gómez! Do you know anything?"
"We're looking for José Luis Cabezas, the Noticias photographer."
He said, "I haven't heard anything. What car were you driving?"
And I say, "A white Ford Fiesta."
He says, "I think I have some bad news for you."
And I say, "What happened?"
I thought it was an accident.
I thought someone had stolen the car or something.
He gets to his office.
I'm behind him.
And with his radio,
he spoke with those in the pit where the car had been found.
I heard him say to the police there,
"It seems like we have an ID on the body."
"It might be José Luis Cabezas from Noticias magazine."
I said, "But you should know if it's José Luis or not."
And they said, "There's no way to identify him
because the body is totally burned."
We're gonna try to film this location.
Yes. Here you can see where the car was found.
It's really impossible to see.
What we have here is a burnt car.
Completely scorched
with a body with masculine features.
Forensics is on the way to work on the scene.
My name is Mariano Cazeaux.
At the time of the Cabezas case,
I was a court officer of Dolores Criminal and Correctional Circuit Court 2,
which José Luis Macchi, Esq. was in charge of.
COURTHOUSE
The Dolores Judicial Ministry covers a very wide area,
including the municipalities on the coast.
ATLANTIC COAST DOWNTOWN DOLORES
On January 25th, a police report came in
about the discovery of a burnt vehicle
with a body inside.
The first police report
was so vague and so short
that it was clear it was being treated as an accident.
TO LAGUNA SALADA GRANDE
They took me to the pit at General Madariaga.
A policeman came.
They told him, "This is Cabezas' colleague."
They took me to the pit.
When I got there,
I saw that horrible scene,
which is an image
that continuously comes to mind and that I'll never forget.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing was José Luis.
It's…
It was…
It was horrible.
Then I asked if they'd found a camera.
They said no, there was no camera.
I asked if they'd found rolls of film. They showed me some burnt rolls.
They started showing me a series of objects.
They showed me a Texan boot.
They showed me a watch.
Some handcuffs.
That's when I found out he had been handcuffed.
And they showed me a bunch of keys, and I saw one
that seemed like the one to our office in Pinamar.
Since I had another set of keys,
I went to look for the other set in my backpack.
We compared them, and they were the same.
We went to Pinamar, to the office.
When we put the key in and turned it and it opened the office,
that's when it hit me.
That's when I knew
that the person who had been murdered, who had been burned,
was José Luis.
JOURNALIST MURDERED AND BURNED ON THE COAST
JOURNALIST'S BODY FOUND IN GENERAL MADARIAGA
At first, it was incredibly confusing.
JOURNALIST - NOTICIAS MAGAZINE
I didn't really understand what was going on.
NOTICIAS MAGAZINE PHOTOGRAPHER HANDCUFFED AND BURNED IN CAR IN PINAMAR
A crime in the middle of democracy
was unforeseen, unimaginable, and absolutely shattering.
JOURNALIST - NOTICIAS MAGAZINE
We ask ourselves who is capable of such barbarity.
And I don't think many people are.
I was just starting out as a radio field reporter.
At that time, there was a lot of confusion.
But I do remember I called the radio to say I wanted to go.
JOURNALIST
Public opinion of Menem was already negative,
pretty negative.
There were a lot of reports of corruption.
And those reports were coming from the media.
Until we don't stop…
In Carlos Menem's first press conference, he gets very uncomfortable and says,
"This issue concerns the Buenos Aires province."
"This isn't a political crime."
Please don't try to politicize the matter.
This is a turning point.
There has been no incident of this sort
since the return of democracy.
Nothing indicates this couldn't repeat itself.
Mr. Alfonsín, a great Argentine president,
said, "They threw a dead man at Duhalde."
When the crime against José Luis happened, Duhalde was scared.
I really think he was scared.
José Luis Cabezas' body
was transported from Pinamar to La Plata on Sunday.
The autopsy was done in the judicial morgue,
where it was verified the journalist was murdered by a shot to the head.
The autopsy determined it had been a violent murder,
which was the product of a shot from a firearm.
They had the direction of the entry and exit of the projectile.
Was he handcuffed?
-He was handcuffed. -With handcuffs from your precinct?
POLICE CHIEF - HEAD INVESTIGATOR
I cannot confirm that.
We intend to take statements from several individuals.
JUDGE - DOLORES COURT
And then the rest will come as the investigation develops.
Has anyone been arrested?
No one has been arrested or held.
Cabezas was a really funny guy.
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR NOTICIAS MAGAZINE
But underneath being funny, he was arrogant.
He was very arrogant.
Here goes.
-Stop. -No, you can't play. You're a cheater.
He was happy, friendly, goofy. Really goofy.
PRESIDENT, ARGENTINE ASSOCIATION OF PHOTOJOURNALISTS
The couple who gets the treasure doesn't pay for the meat.
At first, I didn't like him very much.
After that, things changed. We became friends.
When the idea of assembling a team for Noticias came up,
they called me and said,
"Find yourself five photographers and make Noticias."
Among those five photographers, I chose Cabezas
because I saw he was a guy that really cared about framing.
The magazine Noticias was a news magazine,
and the majority of the covers had a political concept.
It had journalistic investigations, and the photos were really important.
At the magazine, we came to have
the most important team of photojournalists in Latin America.
Cabezas didn't just take a picture of a guy sitting.
He'd take a picture of the guy sitting but from above.
You know? From a strange angle.
He was looking for his own style,
and I think he was finding it.
There were many interviews where he'd get on the desk, and I'd tease him.
But he was obsessive. He always wanted a little more.
He got his inspiration from the surroundings he was working in.
I've never seen another photographer take so many rolls.
He was very convincing.
He was a guy who'd convince you to do anything.
He was very stubborn.
When he made up his mind about something, it was hard to change it.
He had a special outlook, and in a way,
this partying in the '90s influenced his outlook.
PHOTOGRAPHER JOSÉ LUIS CABEZAS
At 11:00, he said…
JOSÉ LUIS CABEZAS' WIDOW
…"I'll be back late. Don't wait up for me."
"I'm going to a party." I knew about this party.
Knowing him and his nature,
fun-loving and…
He just went to a party.
And after that?
After?
After that, it ended.
AGAINST IMPUNITY
After leaving the coffin, the photographers went to the Obelisco.
They made a circle and put all the cameras on the ground.
And suddenly, they realized
they shouldn't do that because that was like giving up.
And they raised their cameras in the air,
and that's how the famous "cameras up" came to be.
José Luis was kidnapped and murdered, and his body was burned.
In a way, that brought me back…
PHOTOJOURNALIST
…to the darkest times our country has seen.
It was a crime from a different era,
reaching through time straight from the military dictatorship.
This was a message to us.
There was a state of national shock.
Imagine the shock of this magazine that was trying to deal with the terror.
Uncertainty, panic attacks,
all sorts of demands.
"Who's going to protect us?"
From that point on, an avalanche of threats started to come in.
Phone calls.
"You're a dead man."
Bullets were left on my doorstep.
I walked around like I did during the dictatorship,
against traffic so they wouldn't kidnap you.
Living in fear.
It's barbaric.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe, in this country,
something so heinous would happen.
We're not asking for revenge. We want justice
because this is not a demand from our group.
This isn't just for us journalists. Don't get that wrong.
It was clear we were gonna have to fight so this crime didn't go unpunished.
If this could happen to a photojournalist
for the most-read magazine at the time,
what about the rest of society?
DON'T FORGET CABEZAS
This will be forgotten.
Something else will happen that takes away the public's attention,
and no one's going to remember Cabezas.
That's our request.
ATTORNEY PHOTOJOURNALISTS' ASSOCIATION
The first thing we ask is not to forget Cabezas.
In "Don't forget Cabezas," there's an implied speaker,
who is someone who's already assumed the duty of remembering
and says, "Don't forget Cabezas."
Otherwise, it will be too late. Other crimes will start happening.
DUHALDE OFFERS A REWARD
The government of Buenos Aires province
has offered a reward
to any citizen who can provide concrete and precise info…
I think a reward isn't used often in Argentina,
but it's something
that is used in many parts of the world, especially in the United States.
And, well, it works.
The reward
may get more people to report what they know.
Chief, aren't you worried people will give false information?
That bad leads will appear in this case?
Unfortunately, yes. I get them every day.
Practically all these statements lead us to dead ends.
Some even seem to be diversions to the investigation.
VICTIM OF UNLAWFUL DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY
A witness shows up,
brought to the investigation by the chief of police.
APPEAR BEFORE THE WITNESS
He came to say he knew
who had committed the crime
and that they were from Mar del Plata.
He provides their names, descriptions…
Compared to Pinamar, Mar del Plata is noticeably different
geographically and socially.
BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
Mar del Plata is a much bigger city
with another way of life.
The fact is that this group of people from Mar del Plata
was linked to the world of organized crime.
LOWLIFES
Margarita Di Tulio, famous for her nickname "Pepita the Gunslinger,"
was one of them.
It was known that she was in charge of some brothels
and prostitution in general in the port area.
My nickname comes from old-school journalism
when I was really young, because I was…
I loved guns, and I loved to carry them.
I always use a .38.
The tip that led to Pepita the Gunslinger and the four men
came from a witness named Carlos,
who claims to have heard Margarita Di Tulio say,
days before the crime,
"There's a Noticias journalist who's messing with us too much."
"We'll have to eliminate him."
He said all of this…
CHIEF INVESTIGATING OFFICER
…because he'd heard it
when he supposedly infiltrated them.
He provided some information
that led to the arrest of the so-called "Pepitos."
Eventually, search warrants were issued for everyone.
And during these searches, a gun was found
that matched the slug found in his skull.
One of them had the gun,
and they had a connection that linked them.
There was some ambiguity,
but after, when the gun appeared,
we said, "All right, there's a real connection here."
Here one of those detainees, the woman,
Margarita Graciana Di Tulio, age 48,
is being taken to one of the police vehicles.
They're pulling my leg. Mine and the Cabeza family's.
What can you say about the gun?
Obviously, they said they're innocent, and the truth should be known.
What can you say?
This is all a lie, a farce.
Why did they get you into this?
My name is Alejandro Vecchi.
I'm a lawyer.
And I was lucky to be called by Mauro Viale…
CABEZAS FAMILY'S ATTORNEY
…who had a show on ATC.
Every time he had a police case, he called me.
The first thing he said was, "There are no politicians or police involved."
-Weird, right? -Yes, it's very…
-It's weird. -Why?
Seems more like a defense lawyer than a witness.
That time, when I went on that show,
the focus was completely on the José Luis Cabezas crime.
Nothing else was more important.
And I'd seen on TV
that some people had been arrested in the Cabezas case.
Something crossed my mind, and I said,
"It strikes me as odd that those who were arrested have lawyers,
and the family doesn't have one."
My only suggestion to the family
was to look for someone they trusted
and have them get to work on the Dolores file
because the truth is in there.
Whatever that file says will be the end of the case.
When the show is over, the Cabezas family surrounds me and says,
"All right, we'd like you…"
I had my young daughters. I wanted to leave, to get out of there.
I didn't want to get involved in that because, to me, it was a case…
It was like a UFO had fallen from the sky.
It was something really big.
At first, I said no, I wasn't going to take it.
At home, I said no. After that, they called me.
And so I went to see the Cabezas family.
There I met José, Norma, Gladys…
I met a family
that could have been my own.
I loved him a lot. I loved him so much.
You have no idea how much I loved him.
I felt so proud of my sons. José Luis was the apple of my eye.
Someone like José Luis?
He only deserved to be hugged and kissed
because I've never seen anyone as nice as he was.
When I got to the Dolores Court, I found a totally disoriented judge.
And I saw a case that was already contaminated.
The star witness was Carlos Alberto Redruello,
a conman with charges in several provinces.
He ended up in Bahía Blanca Prison.
And when the charges were tallied up,
he ended up getting out six or seven months before the crime.
By order of the head of the Buenos Aires Province Police,
this man received a car and a cell phone,
and went from ex-convict to police informant.
In other words, a police spy
who was going to investigate some "drug routes," so to speak,
in Mar del Plata.
He even suggested the group's motive,
saying that these people were really upset
because Cabezas had been investigating
the narcotics trade in the port.
But it was also suspected
that Cabezas had intended to blackmail them
with information he had.
INVESTIGATING LIFE OF MURDERED JOURNALIST
The argument was that José Luis Cabezas was an extortionist
who lived off taking photos and demanding money from people.
Any manual on investigation or criminology
highlights the importance of investigating the victim.
It's not that they can't investigate him. They can.
But they can't openly accuse him
in a case opened 15 minutes prior.
First, this was Mar de Plata.
We were in another universe in Pinamar.
And we didn't have anything to do with that world.
We hadn't even investigated it.
I don't know what's going on in this country.
But to my son, they're…
What are they doing? What else do they want?
What more do they still want after what they did to us?
When I went to the Cabezas' house for the first time,
they asked me if I could accompany them to a meeting
with the governor, Eduardo Duhalde.
Before leaving, he asked if he could speak to me alone.
And he said he was at our disposal
and that this was a very important case for him.
He wanted to know who had killed
and ordered to kill José Luis Cabezas.
I have a commitment to Cabezas' parents
in the sense that one day I will come here, to this neighborhood,
to tell them, before anyone else, who killed their son.
I remember I had a very strange feeling,
a mix of fear,
distrust,
and respect.
There was also a sort of Mafia-like aura
with the police, the government.
And maybe it was the police, and he also represents the police…
BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
Dolores is the town where I was born. I know it, and they know me there.
There aren't many people. Everyone knows each other.
It's a very quiet place.
The town itself has transformed.
A small city
that was suddenly invaded
by the biggest case in Argentina and the region
and with an impact and invasion of journalists
that overwhelmed them.
The town was filled with media trucks,
cables running down the street,
people running,
coffee shops filled with journalists.
It shook the town for quite a while.
Judge Macchi and the court clerk
didn't have experience speaking to the media.
What is certain, then?
The case was overwhelming.
When I heard them speaking about a small-town judge,
and he liked to be called a small-town judge,
I thought they didn't know him,
because he was an incredibly capable person.
And they called him a "small-town judge" dismissively.
JUDICIAL AUTHORITY
We journalists were absolutely able to be manipulated.
They could manipulate us from any front.
And we didn't know where the truth was.
Carlos Menem sent the Minister of the Interior, Carlos Córach,
and the Secretary-General, Alberto Cohan,
to Dolores to speak to the judge.
A very formal visit
where they made themselves available
and offered all the resources needed
to help solve the case.
When they came out of Macchi's office,
they met the press
and provided information,
saying that the tests had given a positive result,
which in some way implied
the case had been solved.
The judge has confirmed in a definitive manner…
MINISTRY OF INTERIOR REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA
…that the gun seized…
One of the guns seized, according to experts,
is undoubtedly the gun used in the murder of Mr. Cabezas.
This was unusual because the official report still wasn't ready.
Two top-level government officials,
a few days after the crime,
overriding the judge just outside the courthouse door
and saying that the case was solved
was ugly.
This investigation
is the responsibility
of the Buenos Aires Province's justice system and police department.
I'm convinced it is the responsibility
of the province to investigate this serious incident
that has happened within it.
I never avoid responsibility.
Duhalde was a very important figure at the time
because he was the governor of Buenos Aires Province,
and he wanted to run for president.
This led to a falling out with his former political associate,
who was Carlos Menem.
Eduardo Duhalde had been vice president during Menem's first term.
Then he was governor of the province,
and he was poised to be Carlos Menem's successor.
There were mutual accusations, an almost textbook political reflex.
POLITICAL ANALYST
First, "I had nothing to do with it."
The president says it. The governor says it.
Because they were the two sectors of power with the greatest share of power.
The government and Buenos Aires province, that's 40% of the country.
Everyone saw in the news
how political curveballs were thrown between them.
The murder of José Luis Cabezas,
which Governor Duhalde could interpret as a warning
against his attempt at the presidential seat,
is a campaign topic.
That week after the murder,
we'd rented a club in General Madariaga,
where I was going to launch my presidential campaign.
That incident obviously
meant I had to put the brakes on that. It was in the middle of it.
I was absolutely shocked.
Duhalde was convinced, at first…
JOURNALIST
…that that body was thrown at him
as a sort of Mafia message.
That was the death certificate of his presidential aspirations.
BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
It's impossible to kidnap someone in Pinamar without being seen.
At every corner, there was a politician or a businessman.
Pinamar, at that time, was the place in Argentina
with the biggest concentration of security guards per cubic meter.
This tells us there was police involvement or that they looked the other way.
The handcuffs.
The handcuffs made me think of the police.
It's normal to assume police intervention
in a crime where fire is used to destroy evidence.
All that could've been done from the start wasn't done.
It was done wrong.
The whole reconstruction of the crime, what could've been found at the scene.
There couldn't have been so much clumsiness in a police investigation
unless it was intentional.
One of the leads had to do
with the possibility of police involvement
because of the publication of that photo
titled "Damned Police" in the magazine Noticias.
If there was anyone we were messing with, it was the Buenos Aires police.
We'd done a magazine cover titled "Damned Police."
THE DEVIL'S SOLDIERS
A police force that was being questioned for a lot of things,
which Eduardo Duhalde had defendedDuhalde
with the famous phrase, "I have the best police in the world."
THE ARMY OF THE NIGHT
And we messed with the Buenos Aires police,
taking photos of the police chiefs' houses.
The guys had fleets of high-end cars.
One of them even had a yacht.
Another had a house in Beverly Hills.
The main photo for the piece was taken by Cabezas.
It's a picture of Police Chief Klodczyk.
José Luis had no problem standing on the desk
of Buenos Aires Police Chief Pedro Klodczyk,
an all-powerful man
who led the most dangerous force in Argentina at the time.
Photographing him from above, you know?
From another place of power.
Klodczyk, with his well-placed hat, the uniform,
the light-blue shirt, the tie,
looking at us as if he's intimidating,
is the picture that goes with the title "Damned Police."
It's really bold to say that, show it, and show it on the cover.
After the interview with Klodczyk,
when we left police headquarters in La Plata,
Cabezas said, "One satisfying thing about this job
is being able to stand on those jerks' desks."
When that cover came out, I sent someone to investigate,
and the findings confirmed that things weren't right.
Just in case, I fired the official,
even though I wasn't sure.
We thought there could've been some hurt feelings,
and it could've led someone to want to get revenge.
Honestly,
I didn't trust the Buenos Aires police
because I'd worked on the famous "Damned Police" article.
I knew how they operated.
So I didn't trust them at all.
My first statement was on January 25th at 11:00 p.m.,
the same day as the crime.
The first was before the General Madariaga police.
And then they took me to an adjacent room
where the Dolores Investigation Brigade took a statement from me.
That night, we're talking about the night of January 25th,
they started asking me what investigations we had done.
So I started telling them.
And by the end,
he tells me, "Don't be scared. You don't have to be scared."
"Why are you so scared? We're here to help you."
"Give us at least something."
I say, "Start looking at the first article I mentioned."
"Which one was it?" "The one on the Ara Pacis Hotel."
And he asks, "Who owns the Ara Pacis?"
And the other officer says, "Yabrán."
The police chief turns pale.
White. He looks at me and says,
"Kid, now I know why you're scared."
Talking about Alfredo Yabrán in the Republic of Argentina
was almost forbidden.
He was someone who
we were advised not to investigate
or mess with.
Saying "don't mess with him" was almost provoking us.
Let's try to know what can't be known.
Yabrán was one of the sons of a Syrian family,
one of many immigrants that came to Entre Ríos.
A family dedicated to business…
JOURNALIST
…commerce, mainly.
A native of Larroque.
He moved to Buenos Aires when he was very young.
ENTRE RÍOS PROVINCE
And he started doing business,
first with the military dictatorship.
Then he maintained his contacts during the democratic government.
The first time I heard the name Yabrán
was in September of '91.
Then I found out that, for years, he had connections
with the administrations and with the Catholic Church.
And especially with the Air Force inside the state.
But I didn't know him,
because I'd never read about him in the media.
I never saw the last name Yabrán.
Everything that had to do with Yabrán had to do with secrets,
hidden secrets.
When Noticias started the first investigation on Yabrán,
different authorities tried to stop the article.
It even ended in a police incident
because the journalist and photographer who went to take the photos
of Yabrán's fortress in Martínez ended up being chased and shot at.
We did an article, several pages long,
where we talked about the serious incident with the gunshots,
Yabrán's background from Entre Ríos to the present,
and for the first time,
we put before the public
the subject of Yabrán. The mysterious Yabrán.
For many, he was the most important businessman in Argentina in the '90s.
It was said Yabrán's fortune reached four billion dollars.
But he also managed the most sensitive parts of the country.
He had private mail through OCA
and bank clearing through OCASA.
All businesses at the Ezeiza Airport and other airports in the country,
through fiscal warehouses with the company EDCADASSA,
load and unload airplanes with the company Intercargo.
The duty-free shops…
That means that if a product arrived in Argentina,
it went through the Yabrán machine
without any middlemen.
CUSTOMS
That gave him absolute power.
SECRETARY OF COMMUNICATIONS
The government will go through with the order to privatize mail.
In the final years,
controversy over the execution of privatizing
was sparked by Domingo Cavallo,
who warned that Alfredo Yabrán would not be favored.
The plan is to raise this issue…
MINISTER OF ECONOMY
…as a conflict of interest.
On one hand, we have Mr. Yabrán
representing the interest of his postal service.
On the other hand, there's me.
Menem, the nation's president,
had found a key economic ally in Domingo Cavallo.
Domingo Felipe Cavallo, Esq.,
do you swear…
Cavallo had a personality and a political future
that he considered to be comparable to Menem.
I do swear.
If you didn't, God and the nation would demand it.
An extreme character of economic politics.
The mentor of the idea of convertibility,
a way they found
to attack an endemic problem of Argentina,
which was inflation.
Tying, by law, the peso to the dollar.
CAVALLO'S COMPLAINT BEFORE CONGRESS AUGUST 23, 1995
All these hypotheses, these assumptions,
and almost convictions,
that Mr. Yabrán leads a Mafia,
I have built by accumulating information.
Mr. Yabrán wanted to destroy the official postal service.
Mr. Yabrán wanted to monopolize the postal service.
After Cavallo's condemnation, the Yabrán case
became, among other things, an eminently political issue in Argentina.
Was it the postal service?
Or was it this whole array of businesses?
If you manage fiscal warehouses
of merchandise coming in and going out,
the loading and unloading of planes,
the postal trucks that circulate on every road in the country,
that's a little more than mail.
It's a state within a state.
It's a struggle for power, not for the postal service.
Menem said he didn't know
what activities the minister of economy was referring to
and that you should ask Cavallo.
Clearly, there was an internal dispute.
Domingo Cavallo left the government.
Menem and Cavallo's falling out was a turning point.
Nothing was the same after that.
Cavallo got closer to Carlos Menem's rival, Eduardo Duhalde.
And clearly, Domingo Cavallo
had become not only someone who accused Yabrán,
but also Menem's political adversary.
When the Minister of Economy, Domingo Cavallo,
complained there was Mafia entrenched in power
and that the boss of the Mafia was Alfredo Yabrán,
it was as if the lights for all of journalism turned on
to see who this person was that they didn't know.
To me, they're Mafia. Why?
They hide.
They don't show their faces.
There aren't even any photos of them.
I was trying to get an interview with Alfredo Yabrán.
I tell the director of the magazine, at the time Héctor D'amico,
and he said he remembered
a journalist who thought he knew Yabrán.
One or two days later, he answered that Yabrán wanted to meet with us.
We get to what was finally Yabrán's mansion.
He receives us with open arms on the sidewalk.
He leads us to the chalet,
the chalet for guests.
He was trying to be really empathetic with us.
He was especially nice,
trying to deny not only our investigations,
but also Cavallo's complaints.
Time and time again, we tried to set up an interview.
We tried to convince him to come out of the dark and show his face.
If he, in fact, had nothing to hide, it was going to be good for him.
He said he wasn't going to do any interviews.
Finally, we convinced him to answer five questions.
Then we went to take his picture.
And he said to us,
"Taking a picture of me is like shooting me in the forehead."
And he lifts his hand to his temple.
We get back to the office
with a bit of text,
with a few quotes from Yabrán,
but without a photo.
In the summer of '96,
we already had information
that that businessman had investments in Pinamar.
After Cavallo's complaints,
getting a photo of Alfredo Yabrán's face
was one of the main objectives.
Yabrán's house there was being watched.
Because he liked to play his game of mystery,
he called it "Narbay," which is Yabrán backwards.
In mid-February,
we were practically closing shop
to return for the season with José Luis.
One of my sources called me and said, "Tomorrow the uncle arrives."
The uncle was Yabrán,
who was so scary nobody dared to say his name.
José Luis and I made arrangements and got to Yabrán's house at 7:00 a.m.
And we see him arrive.
José Luis takes some pictures of Yabrán going in his house,
but they were of his back. It wasn't any good.
First, one source gave me info
on which tents Yabrán reserved in Pinamar that summer of '96.
Something else they'd told me about Yabrán was that he was very routine-oriented.
He didn't like going to the beach in the morning. He went at 4:00 p.m.
We went with José Luis's wife and some friends and others.
And then someone comes
and puts a beach chair down in front of ours,
and a woman asks me, "Doesn't he look like this guy?"
And I say, "He doesn't look like him. That is him."
We stay there looking.
We could see Yabrán. He was very noticeable.
He was a very big guy, stocky, with white hair.
But José Luis said, "I don't have the angle,"
because there were a lot of people on the beach. It was summer.
After a while, we see Yabrán
come walking with his wife
to the north, towards where we were.
José Luis says, "I don't have the angle."
I say, "Look. If he's leaving, he has to come back."
About 40 minutes later, which felt like an eternity,
we see him coming back.
And when she sees him coming,
Cristina, José Luis' wife, poses for a photo.
But he was actually taking a photo of Yabrán.
When José Luis took the photo,
we realized it was going to be a striking photo.
We were driven by that adrenaline
of getting something unique, from a journalistic point of view,
and something everybody was looking for.
Maybe we didn't think about the consequences.
My part of that article had to do with Yabrán's businesses in Pinamar
and a sport harbor project he wanted to do.
It was very flashy.
The numbers didn't add up.
In Pinamar, they were saying it was money laundering from narcos.
We went back to the office that we had in Pinamar,
and José Luis called his boss. He said, "What do you have?"
"I have Yabrán walking on the beach with his wife."
Noticias was getting excited.
The camera roll was sent to Buenos Aires to be developed.
When the rolls arrived, I was the first to see them.
I saw the photo. I looked at it and said, "Great pic."
Because it was great.
Very clear, clean, with a blurry background.
Two weeks later, Noticias is released with that cover
with the title, "Yabrán Strikes Again" and Yabrán on the cover.
And that was revolutionary in journalism.
It was the photo everyone was looking for.
The next summer, the summer of '96 to '97,
obviously the subject of Yabrán was still being followed.
We went back to Pinamar with an objective we'd set for ourselves,
which was the ultimate possibility
of getting an interview with Yabrán,
"with all the bells and whistles," as they say,
with a photo, an article, and so on.
José Luis arrives around December 15, 1996,
and I arrive around the 20th.
When I get there, José Luis says,
"A source told me that some of Yabrán's people
were trying to get my address in Buenos Aires."
For me, that story was the end of it.
I don't particularly recall
José Luis saying to me, "They're threatening me."
I do know
he wasn't completely comfortable
with how things turned out after the photo from the previous summer.
There was a situation.
Once, when José Luis and Gabriel were out reporting,
someone slashed one of their car's tires.
We took the tire to get fixed.
And when we went to get it, the tire guy said,
"Look. Someone did this to you."
Gabriel Michi heard that Yabrán was having dinner at a steak house.
It was known that Yabrán went around with considerable security.
Gabriel also confirmed it at that time
when he went to try to interview him
and had a rough encounter with the security guards.
That could've given the impression
there was something serious, or there could've been something serious
amassing around the work of the Noticias team in Pinamar.
We knew Yabrán's guards were rather aggressive,
but we had the adrenaline to keep going
and, in a way, unmask who Yabrán was,
which had surpassed our fears.
Maybe it was irrational.
And maybe, in hindsight,
you'd say, "They were crazy."
But what happened to José Luis hadn't happened yet.
Yabrán had a military security force.
Hundreds of military men were integrated into it.
They provided services at different companies Yabrán had.
But at the same time, 20 or 30 people
were at the service of Yabrán's personal security force.
The innermost circle were oppressors from the military dictatorship.
Good evening.
-Good evening. -Good evening, sir.
Mr. Yabrán, for years, you've kept a…
"HORA CLAVE" TV SHOW
…I wouldn't say a low profile, but an almost nonexistent profile.
Yabrán the enigma.
And now, suddenly,
you're reversing that strategy. Why now?
It's was impossible to avoid talking about him.
And that's surely why he decided
to start building his own narrative around himself
to counter that of Domingo Cavallo.
Domingo Felipe Cavallo
wants to make all us Argentinians believe
that
there's an American gangster movie here,
with a fortress where a mafioso lives,
with…
a private security army
and with government contacts.
In short,
a state within a state.
Yabrán started to make public appearances.
I'm not going to give any statements. I'm very sorry about the Cabezas case.
Yabrán, why aren't your security guards suspects in the Cabezas murder?
I don't have security guards, miss. Do you see security with me now?
-Do you see them? -When you entered the court, yes.
Curiously, while trying to clear his name,
he ended up saying or doing things to make things more complicated.
And then he gave Clarín an interview.
At one point, they ask you what power is.
You answer,
"Power is having impunity."
Correct.
I always say that's the sentence that paints the picture of who Yabrán is.
In other words, if there's one sentence to describe him, it's that.
First, undoubtedly, to me,
as I said, I'm not prepared to give answers
to five journalists.
And secondly, I must confess with complete honesty,
when they asked me about someone powerful, and I said what I said,
I thought of Cavallo.
He's the one with impunity.
On April 9, 1997,
I get a call from the magazine in the morning.
And they tell me, "It seems like they found a real lead this time."
About two or three months had passed after the event,
and Senator Martínez talks to me.
He says, "I can't sleep. I have to talk to you."
"Come see me in San Vicente,"
where I have a country house. And he met me there.
EDUARDO DUHALDE'S COUNTRY HOUSE
And he said, "My chauffeur,
the other day when Cabezas was murdered,
said he knew who'd done it."
Well, I was in shock.
That's when I told him, "Carlos, we're gonna do something."
"If your chauffeur told you that, bring him to me."
"There's a $600,000 reward."
"He doesn't want anything to do with it. He's terrified."
He says he'd rather leave and quit the job here in the province.
He didn't want anything to do with it because he was really scared.
Then we started seeing how we could get him to talk.
Penalty kick for Argentina.
That day, Argentina was playing Bolivia in soccer.
And I said, "Bring him to me. Come with him. He was your chauffeur."
So he arrived, and we started watching the game,
drinking some wine, and chatting.
Then we had dinner.
We were having dinner, and that young man started to loosen up.
In the end, he said he didn't want any part of it, but he told me everything.
He just didn't know that we were filming him.
Duhalde called the family
and planned on going to Dolores.
He was going to bring the folder with those he thought responsible.
That's when everything started to snowball,
of course, with the lawyer, Vecchi,
fighting to bring down the Pepitos lead.
Duhalde told me…
PARENTS SPEAK OUT ABOUT MURDER FOR FIRST TIME
…"José Luis isn't going to come back,
but I'm going to tell you who killed him."
And he did.
The governor was the most interested in solving the crime.
You could see he had a sense of urgency, typical of the political times,
especially with the start of his presidential campaign.
So he had a vested interest, I figure.
His involvement was important,
above all, regarding the arrival of the accused Los Hornos to the case.
No, I got in contact with one person,
exclusively with one person,
who I accompanied
and theytold me what had happened.
The information showed four people
who were apparently the Los Hornos gang,
comprised of
Auge,
Retana,
González,
and Braga.
And these individuals had supposedly participated in the crime
and had not been considered or investigated during the case.
The neighborhood of Los Hornos
is about ten minutes from downtown La Plata.
It's predominately made up of unstable houses and poor people.
There were people from a poor area
who were hooligans of the team Estudiantes de La Plata.
They'd even boasted
about having committed crimes against other fans.
There was more than one witness
who said they'd heard them confess to the crime.
DOLORES COURT OFFICER
They were key to ordering the arrests.
Retana, do you think you'll go free?
González, are you being pressured by the police?
When it was time to give a statement,
to everyone's surprise,
all the young men from Los Hornos
confessed to having participated in the crime.
Their confessions were out of the ordinary.
Confessing to a crime is not usual. It's very rare.
CONFESSION OF ONE OF THE ARRESTED IN CABEZAS CASE
They confessed to carrying out prior tasks
and being under the orders of Gustavo Prellezo.
Prellezo was a police officer who lived in La Plata.
He had recruited them and gave the orders.
BUENOS AIRES POLICE
Gustavo Prellezo had been deputy police chief of the Pinamar Police.
They declared,
"Prellezo took us to Pinamar to threaten a journalist."
Why did you take the Los Hornos gang to the coast?
I can't hear anything.
Why did you take the Los Hornos gang to the coast?
I didn't take them as a gang. I took them on vacation.
If you took them on vacation, why did they end up killing Cabezas?
Ask them.
But you were there.
-No, I wasn't. -Why did they say you're the killer then?
Do you think they'd say it was them?
The accusation spread out to other police officers
who collaborated with Prellezo.
BUENOS AIRES POLICE
There was Camarata, who was the commanding officer of Valeria del Mar,
which is right next to Pinamar.
He was the one who had given them a place to stay.
He rented an apartment for them.
Then the connection with Luna comes up.
He was working at the Pinamar police station
and participated and collaborated
in following, identifying, and the prior tasks.
MORE POLICE OFFICERS ARE EXPECTED TO BE ARRESTED
Police have also arrested Silvia Belawsky de Prellezo,
who is also a detective
for the Buenos Aires Province police.
Silvia Belawsky was Prellezo's ex-wife.
They had a daughter together. She was also a police officer
and was living in Los Hornos.
BUENOS AIRES POLICE
She had asked a coworker
to look up José Luis Cabezas' criminal record
in the Buenos Aires Province Police database.
That was extremely suspicious.
It was a fact that the Los Hornos group
was directly linked to the police.
José Luis Cabezas takes two very symbolic photos,
the photo of Klodczyk, which is the face of the "Damned Police"
and the photo of Yabrán on the beach walking with his wife.
Both pictures turn into symbols.
Each of these photos represents a different power sphere.
Hence the initial confusion. Is it Yabrán or "Damned Police"?
The handcuffs were a message from the culprit.
Well, look. The police were there.
On one hand, there was Yabrán.
On the other, the subject of "Damned Police" was very relevant.
That lead pointed more towards Duhalde.
The staff at Noticias called me very late at night
and said, "Duhalde wants to talk to you,
but exclusively with you."
So I went, and at one point, he asked me,
"What do you think? Who's behind this crime?"
And I said,
"To me, it was the Buenos Aires Police or Alfredo Yabrán."
And he said, "No."
"I'd say it was Yabrán."
Duhalde urgently needed to
reinforce the Yabrán lead,
among other things, because of the conflict he had with Menem.
I hope this isn't a scapegoat just so the governor of the province
can solve the murder and carry on with his presidential campaign.
Nothing they say will be believed. At least, I don't think so.
They're doing this to distract people, to entertain them
so we think it's over, but I don't think this is.
By then, the Appeals Chamber
was freeing people from Mar del Plata
when they saw another group appear who was taking responsibility for the act.
Your first words in freedom, Margarita?
Why did Redruello involve you in this case, Margarita?
Why did he do it?
How could I have done it
if I hadn't met a single journalist or photographer in my life?
We were innocent. We yelled it.
And now everybody knows we were innocent.
I hope that, I don't know,
the truth comes out for this case, really.
This is how the full picture starts to appear,
and the real involvement of the Los Hornos gang is shown.
They start to give information
they could only know if they had been there.
"PRELLEZO SHOT HIM TWICE"
The people from Los Hornos said
Prellezo had shot him twice.
Up until that point, it wasn't known at all
that José Luis had been shot twice in the head.
The first autopsy determined only one shot.
So they asked for a new autopsy report.
And in the second autopsy, a second hole was found.
SECOND HOLE
They confirmed what the Los Hornos gang said.
They said that on the way back,
they took Cabezas' camera
and threw it off one of the many bridges on the way.
That morning, we heard there could be some news regarding the camera.
I was going live,
narrating the work being done by the tactical divers
and the Buenos Aires Province Police.
There was an incredible display in that lagoon.
And after an endless amount of searching,
it finally showed up
and was immediately identified by the stickers on it.
We see the stickers.
You can see in the photocopy
and here on the camera they just recovered.
They turn it over, and I see
José Luis' kids' stickers.
Up until then, we'd only described that camera,
but we hadn't seen it.
It made me very sad.
It's like it all came together for me that this wasn't just a case.
This was the story of a life.
This is a human being who was killed
doing his job in a full-blown democracy.
With lots of grated cheese.
They killed him like that.
They took a father away from his children.
The Cabezas case…
The case, right?
It's not a case.
It's him.
Let's say the investigation is slowly
and definitively clarifying all the facts.
Including the mastermind?
It seems like the case is basically solved.
Now, Prellezo must have a motive.
His residence is searched, and various items are found,
including a personal schedule.
And the links between Prellezo and Yabrán appear.
Those links were even encrypted,
which raised suspicion.
Why would they hide their relationship?
And Yabrán's business card appears among his personal belongings,
with Alfredo Yabrán's handwritten phone numbers.
We had a lethal weapon against them, I'll admit.
Never in their life would they have imagined
we'd find such a thing.
I think it was the first case,
at least in a criminal investigation
by the Dolores Criminal Investigation Department,
in which telephone communication was investigated.
Maybe that left them unprepared.
This is the famous Castelli bunker,
where Excalibur is housed and operates each day,
along with the detectives, headed by Victor Fogelman.
The Excalibur system had been successfully tested
in various FBI investigations.
They managed to document and visualize telephone communications in a new way.
And they managed, through a computerized system,
to make connections between those phones.
OUTGOING TELEPHONE COMMUNICATIONS
Then the first of Gustavo Prellezo's communications start to appear
with different people from the Pinamar Police Station and such.
And a telephone number starts to appear repeatedly.
INCOMING CALL
It was an unidentified cell phone.
They found it was registered under the name Bridess.
Bridess is a security company
that was the parent of all the security companies
in the Yabrán group.
They discovered the phone number of this famous Bridess
was used by Gregorio Ríos,
the head of Yabrán's home security.
Gregorio Ríos was a retired non-commissioned officer of the army.
He was someone Alfredo Yabrán trusted.
The cross-referencing of the calls
enabled the discovery that Gregorio Ríos
had more communication with the Pinamar police station
than any other station.
And as the date of the crime got closer,
communication increased.
More and more.
The last days had an incredible amount of calls
revealing the movements of Michi and Cabezas,
who were just trying to take a photo. They were around the house…
The day we got close to Yabrán,
the phone started to blow up with calls from Yabrán's security,
who were in an apartment watching us.
They were calling the Pinamar Police Station
with Yabrán and Prellezo and the Los Hornos gang.
It was kind of like a game of cat and mouse.
Just as they were following them, they were being followed.
That didn't happen when we were doing the piece on the police.
It happened when we got close to Yabrán.
And after the crime, all the calls stop.
From the moment of the crime, no one speaks.
At 3:45 p.m.,
the private postal system businessman Alfredo Yabrán
is arriving at the Dolores Federal Court.
An incredible commotion.
YABRÁN'S MOMENT OF TRUTH HAS COME
For us, there was no way we wouldn't call Yabrán
to ask him why,
so he could defend himself and explain to us.
The idea was to know what Prellezo had to do with it.
Alfredo Yabrán is coming out as promised.
His first statement was an informative statement.
It also created a huge shock.
It was one of the few times he appeared in court to testify.
-Alfredo Yabrán. -Yabrán.
Yabrán obviously had to defend himself.
He had to show he had nothing to do with that crime.
What are you going to tell Macchi, Yabrán?
-Talk to the cameras. -Yabrán's going in.
I remember his statement perfectly. It was very long.
He seemed very respectful and polite.
He appeared to be very simple,
very friendly.
He treated everyone with respect.
His statement didn't leave many blanks.
He answered every question he was asked.
And he seemed willing to go through the penal process.
Excalibur's contribution to the investigation
ended up being one of the main factors in the case
because it confirmed everything that was denied.
And much more.
MORE CONTACT BETWEEN YABRÁN AND GOVERNMENT
We requested everyone's phone records,
especially the phones linked to Alfredo Yabrán as a suspect.
Some of them were released, and from those that were,
we found a huge amount of calls to the Ministry of Justice.
It was discovered that almost everyone in Menem's cabinet
had contact with Yabrán.
He had calls with district attorneys,
government officials, ministers, the House of Government…
It was no longer a case
in which a businessman with no political links
had an issue with journalism.
THE GOVERNMENT COMES CLEAN ABOUT ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH YABRÁN
Everybody also knew
he was close to Menem, who was the president.
He'd visited the House of Government.
In fact, during the investigation, there was a visit as well.
We issued an arrest warrant on June 20th,
and a few days later, Yabrán was received
by the highest-ranking minister in the House of Government,
the head of the cabinet.
Yabrán was received at the Pink House,
posing with one of those flyers that said "Don't forget Cabezas,"
amid protests on the streets demanding justice.
What they're doing is a slap in the face to the people.
-A disgrace. -Are you protesting too?
-Of course, man. -Honk!
These people were in a bubble.
They'd accept someone who was accused
of the most detrimental crime towards Argentine democracy
in the House of Government.
And there they endorsed the innocence
of someone under an in-depth investigation
and deeply suspected of guilt.
Clearly, there was no other purpose to that meeting
than to signal to the public that this was a person
who was protected by the national government.
Murderer!
Son of a bitch!
-Murderer! -Murderer!
RÍOS TESTIFIED AND IS UNDER ARREST
The fact is that, until September, when Ríos was arrested,
it was never made official
that the court agreed with our main theory,
which was a gang with some relation to Yabrán,
be it direct or indirect.
…from Buenos Aires Province.
Gregorio Ríos' permanent presence,
the head of Alfredo Yabrán's security,
in the middle of both contacts,
along with Yabrán's history,
could be the main theory.
YABRÁN ACKNOWLEDGED THAT HE SPOKE TO PRELLEZO
Yabrán acknowledged that he met with Prellezo.
They asked him why they met.
"Because this man wanted to sell me an alarm system for Pinamar,
so I told him to discuss it with Ríos,
and he wanted to wish me a happy new year," and so on.
Yes, Prellezo acknowledged having a link with Yabrán.
You killed Cabezas!
In a meeting he had with Alfredo Yabrán before summer,
he said he wanted to have a quiet summer,
obviously in reference to what he considered harassment by the press,
which he'd suffered the previous summer.
Pieces of evidence had accumulated
about Yabrán's possible involvement as the instigator of the crime.
As the evidence was accumulating,
my impatience, maybe due to being young,
brought me to say, "Macchi, we have… a lot."
"It's enough to issue an arrest warrant. Don't you think?"
And he said, "There's always time to arrest him."
We went through a lot of anxiety.
The case had a lot of plateaus.
It seemed like it'd never advance.
Do you think anyone doesn't want the truth to be known?
I heard it on TV yesterday. There's some back and forth.
-It seems someone's covering it up. -Yes.
-You think so? -Yes.
-I've told you several times. -They don't want the truth out?
The instigator or the mastermind is working to keep it under wraps.
So it's a very powerful man.
I'm hoping José Luis' murderers are arrested.
When I say "murderers," I mean everyone.
The one who came up with the idea. Whoever executed it.
Those who participated. Everyone.
Everybody's saying it. The whole world's saying it.
I walk down the street, and everyone says, "It's Yabrán."
We were constantly asking for measures,
insisting Yabrán be arrested,
investigated,
and it didn't happen
until Silvia Belawsky came along.
Silvia Belawsky
was, at the time, the wife of the main suspect, Gustavo Prellezo.
On May 15th, 1998, she made a decision.
I don't know what motivated her to do it, but it must have been difficult.
To our surprise,
as the investigation advanced,
at one point, her defense asked her to expand her statement.
When she was going to testify,
I remember perfectly
the anticipation of whether she was going to talk or not
and what she was going to say and what information she had.
Since she was Prellezo's wife
and after doing research on Cabezas,
we supposed that there was more to that link, that connection.
I was going to…
BUENOS AIRES POLICE OFFICER
…explain a few things.
Well, many things crossed my mind.
And well…
What happened, happened, and I told them what I knew. Nothing more.
YABRÁN IS BEHIND EVERYTHING
She said her husband had told her that.
That it was a request from Yabrán.
Gregorio Ríos had asked them to do that job,
and they had to do it.
DON'T YOU EVER THINK OF OPENING YOUR MOUTH
It clearly showed Prellezo's relationship with Yabrán.
And very concisely, she made it clear
that the order to attack Cabezas had come from the businessman.
And that was maybe the most important statement
that led to the arrest warrant for the businessman Yabrán.
Her testimony was so compelling
that the judge finally ordered an arrest warrant.
WARRANT FOR YABRÁN'S ARREST ORDERED
Raids were carried out, and they didn't find Yabrán.
When they told me, "This man is on the run,"
I said, "That can't be. How is he going to run? He has to testify."
YABRÁN'S HOUSE RAIDED, BUT HE COULDN'T BE ARRESTED
We wanted to know what happened.
Why had they done this to José Luis?
Why had they done such a thing?
NEW FAILURES IN SEARCH FOR YABRÁN
At that point, Duhalde called me and said, "What happened?"
"I don't know."
"How is this going to go down?"
"The police have to find him."
"You're the head of police."
"You have to go search for him with the FBI or whatever."
YABRÁN STILL ON THE RUN, AND INTERPOL IS SEARCHING FOR HIM
It was impossible that Yabrán, with the whole country looking for him,
would be where the raids were being carried out.
Anyone would've thought
with his capacity, power, connections,
he'd be able to hide somewhere that didn't have an extradition treaty.
In small towns,
not much time goes by without getting some information.
We checked every source necessary
until we heard Yabrán was at the San Ignacio ranch,
probably planning how to escape.
I saw movement
that confirmed Yabrán's presence.
I stayed there all night,
and the next day, I waited for the police.
From that moment, I started to describe what was happening.
Live from the San Ignacio ranch.
They're looking for the businessman Alfredo Yabrán.
I saw many units go out.
And I started to see the police get nervous.
So far, some searches have been done,
which we can see at the ranch
where Judge Macchi believes the businessman will be found.
It was like evidence that Yabrán was there.
But they didn't see him.
They searched everything. Yabrán's suite was locked.
They announced themselves at that closed door
and asked if anyone was there.
They didn't get a response.
They tried to open the door.
And when they tried…
they heard a gunshot from inside.
Right now,
as breaking news for the whole country,
we are able to confirm
that Alfredo Yabrán has shot himself in the head with a shotgun.
YABRÁN SHOT HIMSELF
YABRÁN COMMITTED SUICIDE
ALFREDO YABRÁN FOUND DEAD WIDESPREAD AMAZEMENT AND DISBELIEF
WAS YABRÁN REALLY THE ONE WHO DIED?
SUICIDE CALLED INTO QUESTION
First, there was doubt, because much of the media
didn't believe it was Yabrán. They didn't believe any of it.
I think he's alive.
-Hidden somewhere? -Yes, for sure.
Many kilometers from here, on some Caribbean island somewhere.
Under the bed.
In a septic tank.
Behind a pile of cash.
It's hard to think
that someone with so much money would have killed himself.
Half of the public said it was a lie. Yabrán is still alive.
PEOPLE STILL SPECULATE ABOUT THE SUICIDE
A myth was created around Yabrán's death.
WHAT HAPPENED TO YABRÁN?
They say someone took Yabrán's place
so Yabrán could enjoy, I don't know, some paradise beach who knows where,
far from his family who he loved the most.
If you ask anyone, "Do you think Yabrán is dead?"
they'd say, "No, he's sunbathing."
I didn't think it'd end like that.
I didn't think so, but it ended like that.
He made that decision because he was cornered.
Cornered.
Barely 50 people
surrounded the coffin containing the businessman's remains.
How about some respect for the dead!
Is this journalism?
And you want respect for Cabezas!
Dirty press!
Cabezas earned our respect!
-And we respect him. -Well, I have respect for Yabrán.
-He earned our respect. -You don't respect anyone. We're working.
Cover their cameras.
-Shut up! -Careful with the cameras, ma'am.
Another phase ends in the most shocking news story of late.
The disappearance of a powerful man
who decided not to face justice on earth.
YABRÁN WROTE THE ACCUSING LETTERS A DAY BEFORE KILLING HIMSELF
In one of the two letters he left,
he incriminated two politicians.
Your Honor, in the face of the huge amount of condemnation
led by the great Director Domingo F. Cavallo,
in association with the unscrupulous politicians
committed to making Duhalde owner of the truth and the country…
The letter was dated the day before
and signed on top so there would be no doubts left.
He makes some political references to two people…
ALFREDO YABRÁN'S ATTORNEY
…he continually had problems with.
He finishes by saying he's absolutely innocent
of the crime against José Luis Cabezas.
Why do you think Yabrán made such a decision?
Because he had dignity. He couldn't have been more cornered.
He has kids. He has family, just like the Cabezas family.
He didn't let himself get handcuffed, especially not by the damned governor.
It was all set up by him.
But we want to know who killed your colleague,
Mr. José Luis Cabezas,
and what the motives were
that led to Mr. Yabrán taking his life.
It's all being investigated.
CONGRESSWOMAN
This is something that will turn this story
into one of the darkest chapters in national history.
The truth is, I was very skeptical at first.
Everyone said, "A guy like Yabrán wouldn't kill himself."
After investigating the subject,
talking with witnesses,
and seeing and investigating the changes in his environment after the crime,
I ended up convinced that he committed suicide.
The question was why.
Yabrán commits suicide simply because he was about to be arrested.
That doesn't mean necessarily he killed himself because he was guilty.
Menem's government defended
Alfredo Yabrán's innocence until the very end.
It seems clear that somebody stopped protecting him.
Someone said, "Your time has come."
There was no way to make people understand
that rich people can shoot themselves too.
Powerful people are also cornered at times.
Imagining himself in handcuffs
in front of everyone,
in prison in Buenos Aires Province,
a province governed by Eduardo Duhalde,
was humiliating and dangerous.
I lean towards the suicide theory
linked with a particular psychological profile like Yabrán's.
DECEMBER 14, 1999
It seems like Dolores has gone back in time.
The city is again full of police cars and penitentiary correctional officers
like at the beginning of the case three years ago.
What went through Norma and José's minds,
sitting in the same little room
as their son's killers,
waiting for a sentence?
Everyone knew the public
was waiting for this to be solved
and to be solved as thoroughly as possible.
CABEZAS MURDER TRIAL
Please, I ask to have the floor because you just spoke about me.
Yes, now--
-Saying I could… -Yes.
It was shocking
having them face to face.
There was one staring at me, challenging me, I remember.
General Madariaga, under the same name,
Buenos Aires Province,
on January 25, 1997,
at 8:20 a.m…
There was an empty chair,
because, unfortunately, we didn't have the mastermind
who had ordered his head of security
to get rid of all the journalists in the summer.
Alfredo Yabrán.
It's been established that inside the pit,
facing away from the road, there's a vehicle.
A vehicle that's been burned completely.
We were looking for explanations
and those responsible for the atrocious crime
against José Luis Cabezas.
And the smell of fuel was present.
What they did to him, the process, how they treated him and burned him…
We wanted an explanation.
CHAMBER OF APPEALS
Let the record show the account of the witness Michi.
In the early morning of January 25th,
we were covering Andreani's party.
The logical thing would've been to leave that party together with José Luis.
I keep having the same thought,
that if we had been together,
we would've both ended up like that.
I have no doubt about it.
What they describe is that they were hanging out at a party,
but they didn't kidnap Cabezas there,
which is what we all assumed had happened.
They followed him.
They went towards José Luis' door,
and when José Luis got home, they intercepted him,
with guns, obviously. They grabbed him from behind.
They hit him and put him inside our vehicle,
the white Ford Fiesta.
He was no more than seven or eight meters away from his wife.
Maybe if he had shouted
or given some kind of warning
or some signal that he was in danger, his wife would've seen him.
They took him along the road that goes to the pit in General Madariaga.
We knew that José Luis' body had a lot of injuries,
meaning he was evidently tortured on the way.
They hit him, beat him.
Prellezo gets out of the car, in charge of the whole operation.
They get José Luis out.
Prellezo puts him against the wall in the back of the pit
and shoots him twice in the head.
After shooting him,
he also decides to set the car on fire
in the same pit where the car was found.
Gustavo Prellezo coordinated the kidnapping of José Luis.
He did it on orders from Gregorio Ríos, head of Yabrán's security,
and Alfredo Yabrán.
When they exited the pit,
the Los Hornos gang mentioned a call Prellezo made.
Prellezo apparently called Luna on the phone
and said, "Happy Birthday."
Curiously, it wasn't Luna's birthday.
I assume it meant "mission accomplished."
Good day.
On February 2, 2000, the sentence finally came.
All the killers were sentenced.
Gustavo Daniel Prellezo is sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Gregorio Ríos,
as instigator of the crimes…
They were life sentences.
Life sentences without parole for all those who were police officers
and life in prison for the civilians.
The maximum penalty in the penal code
was given to the former police officers Gustavo Prellezo,
Sergio Camaratta, and Aníbal Luna.
The three judges didn't care who pulled the trigger.
They cared that they had all been there,
meaning they all participated in the crime.
LIFE SENTENCE FOR CABEZAS' KILLERS
And I started crying. It really hurt.
Not only was I angry, I was heartbroken.
But I'm very angry, and I hate them.
Murderers!
You got what you deserved!
Argentina!
DECEMBER 1999
In December 1999, the elections take place
and neither Duhalde nor Menem wins.
De la Rúa wins.
Don Fernando de la Rúa.
I think the truth about how Cabezas was killed
changed the meaning of politics that was to come.
Even though it was a criminal act,
its importance
transformed it into a key political case.
That was the end of the governor's political career.
He didn't only lose the election, but he lost himself.
He couldn't continue his political aspirations.
The public began to see the corruption
and the extent of sleaziness in political authority.
And they also realized how defenseless they were.
Justice!
-Cabezas! -Here!
The protests for the crime against José Luis
became something different.
It became a representation of all the injustices
seen in Argentine society.
Before the murder of Cabezas,
other terrible acts had transpired,
like the murder of María Soledad Morales,
the attack on the Israeli embassy and the AMIA,
the murder of the soldier Carrasco,
the explosion in Río Tercero,
the death of Carlos Menem, Jr.
under very sinister circumstances.
All that became the straw that broke the camel's back,
and the public said, "Enough."
After Cabezas, there were many other instances
where the public took to the streets demanding and asking
to change the outcome of these events. Several times.
DECEMBER 2001
DON'T FORGET CABEZAS
The crime against José Luis Cabezas highlighted all of Argentina's ailments.
In light of the events, the sentences weren't light,
but the enforcement of the sentences was light,
because the killers ended up getting out early.
A few years later, a shameful ruling
from the Buenos Aires Province Annulment Court
reduced the sentences,
and after that, in little time, seven or eight years,
they started to get out,
and they're all free today.
They're a danger to society.
DON'T FORGET CABEZAS
Never again.
May no more parents suffer for their children like we do.
Sometimes I get the feeling he's going to open the door and say,
"Mommy, I wasn't the one they burned. I'm here."
I would've liked for José Luis to be known
for who he was.
And not for what happened.
Not for this.
He never could've imagined what his death would cause.
He was a normal guy. He did the pieces we asked him to
and gave his best.
He did his job and things the best he could.
That's the memory I have of him.
The memory of José Luis Cabezas is sort of like
background music that goes with me through life.
Every day of my life, even if just for a minute, I remember José Luis Cabezas.
He's not a hero or a saint.
He's a lesson.
A sense of what's right and what isn't right,
like a sense
of what practicing journalism means and what it's for.
For us journalists,
who go in and out of people's lives,
when something happens,
when there's an anniversary,
that's one thing.
When you're there, close to a family suffering,
you realize that what's news to us
is an everyday tragedy for them.
And it's the missing plate on the table…
the clothes his parents kept for years
to remember him.
It's that horrible absence that's in their everyday life.
It's not just news.
It's people. It's stories.
And it could be any of us.
For those who loved José Luis,
obviously, for us, his absence hurts a lot.
But for his killers,
his presence is always going to hurt.
MONUMENT TO JOSÉ LUIS CABEZAS PIT IN GENERAL MADARIAGA
The Los Hornos gang, Sergio González, José Luis Auge,
Horacio Braga, and Héctor Retana, were sentenced to life in prison.
They got out between 2004 and 2007,
taking advantage of the sentence-reduction law known as "2x1."
Retana died in jail in 2001.
Gregorio Ríos, Police Chief Alberto Gómez,
and officers Gustavo Prellezo, Aníbal Luna, and Sergio Camaratta
got life without parole.
They received different criminal benefits, and all were eventually released.
Officer Sergio Camaratta died in Dolores Prison in 2015.
Former police officer Silvia Belawsky was exonerated
but sentenced to four years in prison
for fraud linked to the vehicle used in the crime.
She served her sentence and was released in February 2000.
While serving time, Prellezo got a law degree.
In 2017, he was released on parole.
The Cabezas family's persistent complaints
have prevented him from working professionally
until his sentence has been fully served.
Twenty-five years after the crime against José Luis Cabezas,
none of those involved in the murder are in prison.
His family continues to fight for his memory and against impunity.
IN MEMORY OF JOSÉ LUIS CABEZAS 1961 - 1997