Sebastian Fest

Updated Tuesday, March 26, 2024-10:59

If a year ago those threatened were

Lionel Messi and his family, this time it was

Ángel Di María

's turn ,

who found a disturbing message from the drug trafficking gangs of Rosario, the city where both Argentine soccer players were born.

"Not even Pullaro is going to save you," said a message that was left early this Monday at the entrance to the country club (private neighborhood) "Funes Hills", on the outskirts of Rosario, where Di María resides every time he goes. to Argentina.

Pullaro is Maximiliano Pullaro, governor of the province of Santa Fe, which includes Rosario, and visible head of the escalation of the

fight against drug trafficking in Rosario

and other cities in the area.

The complete message said the following: "Tell your son Ángel not to return to Rosario again because otherwise

we will screw him up by killing a family member

. Not even Pullaro is going to save you. We don't throw little papers. We throw lead and dead people."

According to local media, the sign was thrown by a moving gray car around two-thirty in the morning.

The message is similar to the one that the father of Antonela Roccuzzo, Messi's wife, received in March 2023: that time, Roccuzzo's supermarket woke up with 14 bullets in the shutters and a message on a piece of paper that said "Messi, we are waiting for you." "Javkin is a drug trafficker, he's not going to take care of you."

Javkin is the mayor of Rosario, Pablo Javkin, very far from being a drug trafficker. The threat, directed at the player who had just become world champion in Qatar, had global resonance.

Di María, former player for Real Madrid and Paris Saint Germain, among other clubs, analyzes the possibility of

returning to Argentina

to wear the shirt of Rosario Central, the club of his origins. The threatening message, accompanied by the recipient "Di María family", could make him rethink those plans.

"Lately I was seeing what happened in Rosario, that influences you a lot in the family," said Di María, currently at Benfica, when commenting last week to local media about the possibility of returning to Rosario.

"I have my parents and my sisters there, what was happening affects me, it shocks me a lot," added the striker, a great friend of Messi, whose dream of playing for Newell's Old Boys, the other big club in Rosario, is also diluted by the complex situation that its city is experiencing.

Rosario

is five times the homicide rate

of the country's average, which in Argentina is 4.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Given the increase in violence, Javier Milei's government recently decided to send federal forces to the province and give the Army participation in the security operation and fight against drug gangs.