The secret history of the murder of Ai Ru, one of the most feared Chinese gangsters in Argentina

There was not nothing out of the ordinary regarding the bloody corpse that the Homicide division of the City Police found in the kitchen of the restaurant Aroma China in Paraguay street at 2700 in the early morning of August 30, 2020.

In the restaurant something relatively common for certain places of the Asian community circuit in Buenos Aires worked: a poker room. Three men, also Chinese who lived in the restaurant, were arrested; it was found a 9 millimeter caliber Ruby pistol among the trash with several bullets.

The narrative of the event seemed simple,an underground card game that was heated to death, and not much else. A witness even He had stated that he saw two suspects leave with oriental features after the roar of gunfire. It all made sense.

Later, history began to change. Sometimes in the underworld the dead are not called by name.

In the first moment, It turned out that the man in the kitchen had three bullets. Later, it turned out that he had more: the final police report marked 15 shots between the head and the torso and 23 thousand pesos in a pocket.

What appeared to be the identity of the victim was known through a national ID that they found, it corresponded to a 34-year-old man also Chinese, residing in a warehouse in Villa Ortúzar, former employee of a wealthy community merchant. Court N ° 47 of Mónica Berdión de Crudo proceeded to close the file, but the viciousness with which the man in the kitchen was killed was evident.

The Chinese mafias in Argentina speak little and shoot just enough. 15 shots was too much.

Time after, someone showed up at the Judicial Morgue to remove the body. He carried a passport that belonged to the dead man, but that passport did not belong to the man from Villa Ortúzar, but to someone much more important: the body belonged to Yang Ye Hui, born on December 6, 1986 in Fujian, merchant according to his activity declared to the Justice, residing at Calle Directory Mataderos.

However, it was much more famous for his alias in the criminal world: Ai Ru, they called it.

And Ai Ru was much more than a simple heavy: he was of the heaviest, a gangster extortionist and trafficker of women, the second in command of Pi Xiu, the most powerful Chinese mafia in Argentina.

Some time later, it was confirmed with certainty: the dead man on the kitchen floor was indeed Ai Ru.

The rumor about the identity of the dead started in certain sectors of the Chinese community. Later, police sources accessed Infobae they confirmed it through their investigations. There are disturbing versions around the crime of the joint-restaurant.

The worst of all indicates that an elite hit man commando broke into the gambling den to threaten everyone present with killing them if they spoke. The former mafia boss was allegedly executed after a transmission by video call of the previous one of the murder.

To understand the brutality of the event, you must first understand who was Ai Ru himself, and what is Pi Xiu.

The mafia, named after a mythical animal with the body of a dog and the head of a dragon, was raided for the first time in June 2011, accused of running a mega-business of armed extortion to squeeze supermarkets with entrance fees to the mafia of 30 thousand dollars or more: could raise, supposedly, a million dollars and a half per month, with 300 threatened businesses and a staff of hitmen at your disposal.

Judge María Gabriela Lanz ordered 22 proceedings after a long and meticulous investigation of the ex Fraud and Fraud division of the PFA, today the Anti-Fraud division, the largest expert on Chinese mafia in the country.

There were more than 20 detainees that day, among them who was identified as the triad’s greatest chief, Yong Ye, nicknamed “A Di”, “El grande”, or “El Grosso”, born in the Chinese province of Fujián, with an Argentine DNI and a previous conviction in Córdoba for serious injuries.

Also there was fire in the operation. The GEOF group entered one of the main bastions of Pi Xiu in the province of Buenos Aires, the “Mis Sueños” supermarket on Rivadavia avenue in San Martín.

They were received with bullets by members of the gang; a member of the GEOF took a shot in the helmet and another on the right arm. On that day Ai Ru also fell, captured aboard his truck, surrounded by anti-fraud police.

Karaokes were also raided in Bajo Flores with prostitutes and a truck loaded with rifles and pistols, a Chinese restaurant next to the old Cosmos cinema on Corrientes Street where they defined their plays at banquets.

Annotations were found that suggested Money movements made during six months between 2015 and 2016, transfers to the East for seven million dollars and 14 million pesos. They were also tried for other crimes.

Judge Lanz’s investigation revealed eavesdropping that Pi Xiu was linked to trafficking in women, with five Chinese women Found in 2016 after the rollover of a Volkswagen Amarok in Campana. They had come to the country from Fujian to land in Bolivia or Ecuador, trafficked overland in trucks, with nights in hotels or houses.

Ai Ru, appears at length in the transcripts. There are some talks between him and another member of the band regarding the “rescue” of women Found after the Amarok capsized.

His interlocutor tells Ai Ru: “Well, Take away five now, I’m going to know who the other three are. I’m going to threaten them. Do not worry. Gendarmerie Sales”.

The same man later assures Ai Ru: “I will coordinate with Migrations to delete your records. After I get home, tell me the names of the five o’clock ”.

Later, that same mobster assures that he contacted a senior manager of Migrations to talk about “The money to release at eight.” Apparently, according to the listeners, Ai Ru himself would have come forward to search for the women in a dependency of a security force in Zárate.

After the analysis of the wiretaps, they suspected shady deals with Migrations in this episode to get the rescued women back, particularly with Leonardo Javier Rende, Part of Ticket and Notification Desk Department at the national level.

The accusation against him speaks of fluid contacts with a mobster with more than 20 cell phone calls and alleged money payments.

On May 24, 2019, Ai Ru, Yong Ye and Leonardo Rende were convicted in the first instance by the Federal Oral Court No. 4 of San Martin. The official received three years of suspended prison. The Chinese gangsters, three and a half years of effective compliance.

Ai Ru’s star he wore out after leaving the Ezeiza jail. Who know the underworld They point out that he broke up with Pi Xiu and what would there be tried to stay with the extorted supermarket clientele he ran in his high mafia days, who even tried to set up his own organization without much success.

He ended up as a moneylender in the gambling den on Paraguay Street, offering money to players to then charge them with a usurious rate.

In the meantime, the mafia world where Ai Ru had been lord and master was changing rapidly. Pi Xiu retained part of its historical power, but new triads advanced in the Federal Capital and the suburbs with barrabravas of the Ascent or First like gunmen for hire.

The underground gambling business was beginning to take off between karaokes and crystal meth pipes smuggled from Europe by Asians. Geopolitics was not the same as in 2016.

Ai Ru, meanwhile, was spending his days on Paraguay Street, where it was really easy to see him, almost an outdated relic in fast times. So who killed him?

It is suspected that his old colleagues and mob bosses would not have been the ones who ordered his death. They also didn’t pepper him for a couple of marked cards. It was, it is believed, another thing.