Overview

• Five women in Salta have been formally charged by prosecutor Daniel Alejandro Escalante for orchestrating a series of frauds against an elderly retiree.
• Searches of the suspects’ Valle de Lerma homes yielded phones, electronic devices and key documents now under forensic analysis.
• Perpetrators known as 'viudas negras' seduce victims and administer substances like scopolamine to incapacitate them before accessing their banking data.
• More than 5,000 complaints have been filed this year in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, resulting in 25 fatalities and over 1 billion pesos stolen.
• Law enforcement and security experts are deploying dedicated undercover units and community counter-intelligence teams to detect and prevent future 'viudas negras' scams.