Luis Raúl Menocchio, known as "El Gusano" and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment in Argentina, broke a 15-year silence in an interview with Revista Anfibia to deny the murders for which he was convicted. The Argentine detailed his time in Paraguay during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, stating that he enjoyed political protection and ran profitable businesses before fleeing the country without ever being tried for one of the most brutal crimes in recent Paraguayan history.
According to Menocchio's account, his family arrived in Paraguay after his father offered refuge to Heriberta Stroessner, the dictator's sister. This connection allegedly guaranteed access to the presidential residence Mburuvicha Róga and facilitated his business ventures, including cable television companies in Encarnación. He claimed to organize parties attended by influential politicians and businessmen, featuring models brought in by helicopter. However, he alleged that he lost his political protectors following lawsuits for signal piracy and fraudulent sales, having sold his cable operations to Grupo Clarín without receiving the agreed-upon amount.
The case that prompted his flight was the disappearance and murder of businessman Eduardo Maciel and his partner Graciela Méndez in August 2004. Their bodies were found inside metal drums sealed with cement. Menocchio denied involvement, saying he had only met the victims that night at the Puerto Madero bar, where he lost a $500 bet and left a Rolex watch as collateral. He maintained that witnesses were paid off by commercial rivals and that Paraguayan judicial authorities conspired to frame him and seize his assets. Crucially, Menocchio was never tried in Paraguay for this double homicide because he fled before the trial.
The escape was described as cinematic: after a prosecutor warned his lawyer about a death order if he were arrested, Menocchio crossed the border into Argentina on foot, using a vegetable raft (ant smuggling) on the Pilcomayo River in the Clorinda region. He carried a backpack with $1 million in cash. Upon arriving in Buenos Aires, he boarded a bus to the home of Claudio Nozzi, adopted the false identity of Hugo Jara, and underwent plastic surgery.
Menocchio also commented on other crimes. Regarding the death of Nozzi in 2005, whose body was found in the Paraná River with gunshot wounds, chains, and anchors from his yacht, he attributed the event to a police trap, claiming the blood marks were from fish and that Nozzi had received $10 million from him for projects. As for the La Fidelidad estate in the Argentine Chaco, sources differ on the exact size of the land (between 130,000 and 150,000 hectares). Menocchio insisted he was the legitimate owner, accusing groups linked to Manuel Roseo's former secretary — who was murdered in 2011 along with Nélida Bartolomé — of orchestrating the crime to facilitate the expropriation of the land for the creation of a national park. He described himself as the "perfect scapegoat" due to his criminal record.