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By Rosario Marina

Enzo Ramos Aguirre was 23 years old and was murdered early Thursday morning in his own bedroom in Buenos Aires. A couple contacted him through the "Soy tuyo" (I'm yours) website, tied him up, gagged him, and left him lying down, hidden under a mattress. Hours later, his friends learned that this wasn't the first time a supposed couple had contacted boys through the website and tied them up in order to steal everything. Enzo, a dancer who turned to sex work to survive due to the pandemic, only had a cell phone and a little money in his wallet. 

The case is being handled by the 49th National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office, headed by prosecutor María Paula Asaro.

CHA (Argentine Homosexual Community), AMMAR (Association of Prostitute Women of Argentina), and 100% Diversity and Rights are calling for the crime to be recognized as a hate crime, and not just as homicide in the context of a robbery. Greta Pena, president of the latter organization, told Presentes that they submitted a letter to the prosecutor's office requesting the intervention of the UFEM (Specialized Prosecutorial Unit for Violence against Women of the Public Prosecutor's Office) to ensure that, as occurs with femicides where the legal presumption that gender is the motive governs investigations a priori, the presumption of a hate crime is applied to the murders of LGBTIQ+ people.

On Thursday, Enzo was at a bar on the corner of Fitz Roy and Honduras, in the Palermo neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the couple at the hotel where he was staying at midnight. Around 1:00 a.m., Santiago, the guy who lived with him, arrived, saw everything scattered, saw blood on one of the beds, and called the police. 

"It wasn't improvised; seals were found."

"The camera sees them enter the bedroom door, and the next thing you see is them leaving at 12:20," Daiana Mansilla told Presentes . Daiana is a friend of Enzo's and was one of the witnesses who entered the bedroom with the police from the 25th precinct in Buenos Aires City and saw her friend's body tied up and gagged.

“The place was completely turned upside down. It looks like there was a struggle. There were two beds in that room, because he was sharing it with a friend of ours. They turned everything upside down. It wasn't improvised, because they found duct tape,” Daiana explained. She found him with his arms tied behind his back with duct tape and a T-shirt stuffed in his mouth. There was blood on his head and he was covered with a mattress. 

Other victims of the same men

The day before, a young man said he'd also been contacted by a couple, who beat him with a gun, but managed to escape when his cousin arrived and the two men ran away. Since the modus operandi was exactly the same, Enzo's friends asked him to testify through the same website so they could add to the case. According to Daiana, he was able to identify Enzo's killers as the same ones who had attacked him. Furthermore, other sex workers detected that they had been called from the same phone number.

There's also a third, identical testimony: another young man who experienced the same thing, but didn't come forward out of fear. On Wednesday, a tall, male couple between 25 and 28 years old, one blond and the other dark-haired, called him as clients. " They pretended to be a couple. I opened the door, gave them water, and when we went to the room, they tied me up, grabbed me by the neck, squeezed me, and demanded money. They told me, 'They've handed you over, so tell me where all the money is,'" said the young man, who prefers to remain anonymous.

When they entered the room, they turned up the music, one of them asked if he could give her a massage, and when her back was turned, the other hit her with the gun. "They tied me up and covered me with a quilt. Every so often they came and hit me," he added, explaining that they took many of his belongings (television, computer, cell phones, headphones, etc.) and loaded them into a car parked on the sidewalk.

The 49th National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office, headed by Prosecutor María Paula Asaro, is handling the case. The CHA (Argentine Homosexual Community) will ask the prosecutor to intervene with the UFEM (Specialized Prosecutorial Unit for Violence against Women of the Public Prosecutor's Office) to ensure that, as occurs with femicides where the legal presumption that gender is the motive governs investigations a priori, the presumption of a hate crime is applied to the murders of LGBTIQ+ people.

Support from organizations, march and family requests

“From AMMAR, the Argentine Sex Workers' Union, we demand justice for the murder of Enzo, a fellow sex worker from the Microcentro area of ​​Buenos Aires City, who was the victim of a robbery and subsequent murder. This is not the first crime committed against a sex worker since the quarantine began; rather, it is one of many that have occurred over the past few months,” reads the statement published by the Argentine Association of Prostitutes.

#LGBTIQ people be investigated, applying the protocols for crimes against gender and sexual orientation. ENOUGH HATE, JUSTICE FOR ENZO," posted on social media.

100% Diversity and Rights stated: "These types of crimes send a disciplinary message to the entire LGBTI+ population." The characteristics present at the crime scene, the context in which it occurred, and the victim's sexual identity all underline the importance of ensuring the corresponding perspective from the beginning of the investigation. Therefore, this request is made for the immediate intervention of the UFEM.

The Argentine LGBT+ Federation also demanded an investigation into Enzo's murder. "The perpetrators of these types of crimes, which Ammar has reported as recurring in the City in recent months, choose their victims due to the vulnerability generated by clandestinity and the stigma imposed on our community and sex workers," they explained in their statement .

The organizations and their friends are calling for a march to demand justice for Enzo's murder. It will take place on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in Plaza Congreso. That same day at 9:00 p.m., there will be a candlelight vigil at the crime scene, Esmeralda 933, Buenos Aires City. 

Furthermore, since the prosecutor's office told them the body cannot be transported to Corrientes, the friends are raising money so the family can come and say goodbye. They are doing so using the account in the name of Gabriel Hernán Aguirre, CBU 00700771-30004072542058.