Police and judicial sources say a 30-year-old man was shot to death on Monday in the town of Rafael Castillo, La Matanza district, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by a Chinese merchant who accused him of stealing from his supermarket.

He was detained for the time being for possessing a weapon with the serial numbers filed off, they say.

It all started about 11 a.m., when two armed thieves looted a grocery at the crossroads of Andrade and Esquiro streets in the aforementioned town in the southwest suburbs.

According to sources, the criminals broke into the store and grabbed the owner’s possessions, cash, and cell phones before fleeing.

The merchant pursued the offenders with his own handgun and fired several rounds, one of which critically injured one of the suspects in the lower back.

According to the sources, the victim, identified by the police as Nicolás Braian Palavecino (30), was taken to a local health center by family and neighbors, where he died.

Parts of what is thought to be a prop weapon, Easter eggs, and cash were seized from the deceased, according to the same informants.

Meanwhile, the merchant was for the moment arrested for the crime of “illegal carrying of a firearm”, since the weapon he used to shoot had the number filed off, a judicial spokesman explained to Télam.

However, the prosecutor in the case, Marcos Borghi, of the La Matanza Homicide Thematic Instructional Unit (UFI), has not yet defined whether he acted in his legitimate defense or committed some excess.

On the other hand, personnel from the Departmental Directorate of Investigations (DDI) carried out different procedures this afternoon in an attempt to locate the second suspect who escaped.

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