Judge in Peru rules key suspect in Argentina triple murder be remanded in custody for nine months

A judge in Peru has ordered that the main suspect in last month’s brutal triple murder in Florencia Varela, Argentina, be remanded in custody for nine months ahead of his possible extradition.

Peruvian authorities last week detained Tony Janzen Valverde Victoriano, nicknamed "Pequeño J” after an operation involving police in both countries, pending extradition proceedings.

On Friday, a judge declared Valverde, 20, to be a flight risk, and remanded him in custody for nine months while awaiting possible extradition on charges of aggravated murder.

The National Penitentiary Institute later shared images of Valverde, flanked by officers, arriving at a facility south of the capital Lima where "security measures have been tightened," according to a statement on X.

Argentina’s government "will have to obtain, through diplomatic channels, all the documents related to the extradition," Judge Cristhian Rafael Chumpitaz Pariona said during the court hearing, which was broadcast by the Peruvian Judiciary.

“Nine months of preventive detention for the purpose of extradition are ordered against Tony Valverde for the alleged crime of aggravated murder of three women in Buenos Aires,” the magistrate said.

Dressed in a white T-shirt and monitored by two police guards, Valverde attended the hearing remotely from a police station in the southern part of Lima.

The bodies of Morena Verdi and Brenda del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutiérrez were found buried in the yard of a house in a southern suburb of Buenos Aires last week, five days after they went missing.

The three were tortured and killed in a live broadcast to around 45 people on a closed social media group in what local authorities believe was punishment for an alleged drug theft.

Investigators said the young women were lured by drug-traffickers into a van on September 19, thinking they were going to a party.

The women had been asked to attend a party as sex workers, according to several media outlets. 

A cousin of Brenda and Morena told the AFP news agency the pair had sometimes engaged in sex work "to survive," without their families' knowledge.

The killings shocked Argentina, where thousands of people demonstrated last weekend to demand justice.

Valverde is suspected of running a drug gang in the Zavaleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, specifically the impoverished area known as Villa 21-24.

His lawyer, Marcos Sandoval, has maintained his innocence and claimed his work in Argentina involved harvesting blueberries and selling socks.

Valverde was arrested on Tuesday, shortly after his suspected accomplice and right-hand man, 28-year-old Argentine national Matías Ozorio, in the southern Lima district of Pucusana.

Ozorio was deported to his homeland on Thursday.

Seven other people have been arrested in Argentina over the murders.

– TIMES/AFP