ROSARIO.- Just hours after receiving medical clearance, and after being hospitalized for more than a week after being shot in the abdomen, 21-year-old Dylan Cantero, brother of Ariel “Gil” Cantero, was arrested and will be charged with small-time drug trafficking in the southern region of Rosario, an area that clan has controlled for nearly two decades.
Several sources consulted agreed that the arrest of Dylan Cantero aims to remove him from the streets, as in recent months he was the target of two attacks that almost cost him his life. A police source said: “He would prefer to be in prison with his relatives and friends, because it is possible that they will try to kill him again.” His last name carries weight in Rosario’s drug geography, and if they can execute him, as they have been seeking for months, his death will likely bring revenge, as has already happened in this family’s recent history. Before he could be discharged, Dylan was arrested. He could not set foot on the street. The area where the emergency hospital is located has a special security deployment, which included blocking two side streets in front of the authority’s guards.
One example of Los Monos’ loss of power within the city’s mafia and drug network is the murder of Dylan at the family home on Flor de Ambar Street, where even the police were not encouraged to approach until a few years ago.
Dylan was arrested by members of the Federal Investigation Department (DFI) of the Argentine Federal Police (PFA), on the order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which also ordered raids and arrests against seven people associated with Los Monos.
Dylan was detained inside the Clemente Álvarez Emergency Hospital, where he was taken to the hospital, which is very surprising, because no reason or investigation has previously emerged that would complicate the youngest son of Máximo Cantero, known as El Viejo.
The final attack that took Dylan to the hospital occurred on November 18 at 2:40 p.m. At the intersection of Caña de Ampar and Passaje 512. This is the same place where Dylan Cantero was shot on October 15. This incident ended in a very dangerous situation, because when he was discharged from the hospital the next day, a shooting occurred at the hospital guard, which caused a state of panic among the workers of this health care center. At the scene, the attackers left a message with a direct message: “Dylan Cantero, don’t hit the gun,” accusing him of being a police informant.
The siege of Dylan Cantero was evident again on November 6, when a shooting occurred at a bakery located at Oronio and Patria, where the attackers left another note as a scratch.
Threats against the heir to Los Monos are nothing new. During various periods of 2025, Dylan was mentioned on flags attributed to Los Minores, the rival Los Monos gang. In August, banners appeared in schools and other places in the southern region accusing him of “killing workers in the Las Flores neighborhood.”
Dylan is the youngest son of El Vijo Cantero and Celestina Contreras, founders of the drug crime organization Los Monos. He is the brother of Ariel “Jelly” Cantero, the gang’s current leader who is serving time in federal prison, and the brother of Claudio “Pajaro” Cantero, who was killed in 2013.
Dylan was left alone when he was eight years old when his mother, Celestina Contreras, was taken into custody in May 2013. A neighbor from the La Granada neighborhood sheltered him while no one in the family was free: they were all prisoners or runaways. He was the only one to survive the massive raids against Los Monos after the wave of revenge that broke out after Pajaro’s murder.
His criminal life began very early. Dylan was arrested on several occasions when he was a minor for committing various crimes, including carrying firearms, as happened in March 2021 when he was also arrested with 280,000 pesos and $700. In January 2022, when he was a minor, police arrested him in the Las Flores neighborhood riding a horse and in possession of weapons, like in a Wild West movie. In August 2019, when he was 15 years old, he was intercepted while riding in a Volkswagen GOL with another person and found in possession of a 9mm handgun that had been thrown from the vehicle.
In September 2022, after turning 18, Dylan was arrested as part of an investigation by Prosecutor Marisol Fabbro into a group separate from Los Monos led by his nephew Luciano “Lucio” Cantero, the son of Claudio “Pajaro” Cantero, and Lorena Verdón. When he found himself surrounded, Dylan attempted to escape through the rooftops of La Granada with a machine gun in hand, with which he intended to intimidate or shoot the police officers who finally caught him.
In December 2023, Dylan accepted an abbreviated trial and was sentenced to three years in prison for admitting to being a member of an illicit association led by his nephew Lucho, who is currently imprisoned in a high-level cell in the Marcos Paz prison. He also accumulated cases before the Juvenile Court on charges of illegally possessing a firearm and concealing stolen motorcycles found in his home. In October 2024, the Criminal Chamber reduced his standard sentence from 5 years and 6 months to 3 years after a proposal from his defence, supported by the juvenile counselor who indicated that the original sentence was “stigmatization and discrimination by virtue of his family affiliation.” Dylan regained his freedom at the end of 2024 after serving his sentence.
The attacks against Dylan occur in the context of a profound reshaping of Rosario’s criminal map. Los Menores is a new clan that has emerged to replace Los Monos, whose leader is Matias Gazzani, one of the country’s most wanted fugitives and for whom the Santa Fe government and the Department of Homeland Security are offering a $60 million reward.
Los Minores had its beginnings in April 2020 in the 7 de September neighborhood, in the northwestern region of Rosario, where it began to expand to other parts of the city, leading to the displacement of merchants who responded to other organizations through violence. The gang became visible after the murder of former president of the Central Bar Association of Rosario Andres “Belén” Bracamonte on November 9, 2024, a murder that marked a turning point in the control of the territory and the swelling mob.
The minors work under the command of Ghazani, who is still on the run and is a kind of ghost, and his lieutenant Lisandro “Leisha” Contreras, detained in December 2024 in the country of San Sebastian, in Tigre. The organization created alliances with Los Monos middle managers incarcerated in federal prisons, forming a kind of expanding drug cooperative.