Three bodies found buried at a house in the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires have been identified as Brenda del Castillo, Morena Verdi and Lara Gutiérrez, three young women who went missing on Friday. Police believe a drug gang killed them in a premeditated attack.

Antonio, the grandfather of del Castillo and Verdi, spoke to press after the identification. His granddaughters were both 20, while Gutiérrez was 15.

“The ending we didn’t want has happened,” said Antonio, who used his first name only. “They have taken two beautiful young things from our lives. And not just that they took them… Do you know what those girls must have suffered, the pain they must have felt in their bodies? And now, we want to ask for justice, but what justice can we ask for, if they grab the guy that sells 100 grams of drugs but they don’t touch the people bringing it into the country?”

Read the latest on this story: Murder of three women was live streamed on social media, authorities confirm

Feminist organizations including Ni Una Menos (Not One Woman Fewer) have reacted with horror and rage to the femicides, and are calling protests around Buenos Aires.

The young women were from La Matanza. They were last seen on CCTV footage from Friday, which showed them getting into a white pickup truck at a junction at 9:29 p.m. 

Their bodies were found at a house in the southern Buenos Aires suburb of Florencio Varela, where their cell phone signal was last detected. Traffic monitoring centers also showed the pickup truck traveling towards the area. The burned-out truck was later found in a section of wasteland 100 meters from the house.

‘Falling into a trap’

Javier Alonso, Security Minister of Buenos Aires Province, spoke to press about the circumstances of the triple femicide. 

“They were supposedly going to take part in an event they’d been invited to without knowing they were falling into a trap set by a transnational narcotrafficking group that had perpetrated a strategy to murder them,” he said. 

Some details of the case are subject to reporting restrictions. However, Alonso confirmed that their bodies were found at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday, buried in a garden. Their families identified them by tattoos and items of clothing. 

“As we’ve often said, drugs travel 2,000 kilometers to enter Buenos Aires Province. In this case, it’s an organization with its command center in Buenos Aires City, in one of the emergent neighborhoods, with several points of sale in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.”

He confirmed that police have arrested four people in connection with the case: two people who were at the home cleaning it when police arrived, and the two owners of the house. The authorities believe more people were involved in the crime.

Police believe the women were murdered between 11 p.m. and midnight on Friday. The victims often used to go to Flores neighborhood in Buenos Aires, where investigators believe they met members of a drug gang.