Gunmen threatened Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi in a written message left Thursday when they opened fire at a supermarket owned by his in-laws in Argentina, police said.
Nobody was injured in the early morning attack, and it was unclear why assailants would target Messi or the Unico supermarket in the country's third-largest city of Rosario, owned by the family of his wife, Antonella Roccuzzo.
The city’s mayor, Pablo Javkin, went to the supermarket and lashed out at federal authorities over what he called their failure to curb a surge in drug-related violence in Rosario, located about 190 miles (300 kilometers) northwest of the capital of Buenos Aires.
Police said two men on a motorcycle fired at least a dozen shots into an Unico branch in the early hours, leaving a message on carboard that read, "Messi, we're waiting for you. Javkin is also a drug trafficker, so he won't take care of you." Messi has not commented. Considered by many to the greatest soccer player of all time, Messi is revered in Argentina, especially since he led the national team to the country’s first World Cup victory in 36 years in Qatar in December.
Messi currently plays for Paris Saint-Germain and spends much of his time overseas, though he often visits Rosario where he has a home in the suburb of Funes. The French team posted a photo on social media of Messi training on Thursday morning.
At a horrendous hour, two men discharged shots at a shut general store having a place with the group of Lionel Messi's significant other, prior to leaving a compromising message on the ground focused on the seven-time Ballon d'Or champ.
"Messi, we're hanging tight for you. Javkin is a narco, he won't deal with you," said the written by hand message left on the ground by the ones who shot 14 slugs into the store's metallic veneer in the early long periods of Thursday.
Pablo Javkin is the city hall leader of Messi's old neighborhood, Rosario, where the store is found, about 320 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires.
Javkin affirmed the store had a place with the group of Antonela Roccuzzo, who imparts three youngsters to the football whiz, and said the point of the assault was to "to make turmoil in the city."
"Here, what's looked for is the repercussion, it's dishonest," he said. "What story goes more rapidly popular on the planet than an assault on Messi?"
Image of slug openings in a window of a general store having a place with the group of Antonela Roccuzzo.
An observer affirmed seeing the two men show up on a motorbike not long before 3:00. One of them got off, discharged the shots, dropped the note and the two of them escaped.
"This has been happening for quite a while," said Javkin. "We have five security powers working in Rosario yet they can do this in light of the fact that nobody is pursuing them."
Common police right hand boss Ivan Gonzalez told Cadena 3 TV channel that the message was "not a danger" but instead an endeavor to "stand out."
He said nobody was harmed since there was nobody in the vicinity at that hour.
The examiner accountable for the case, Federico Rebola, let columnists know that there had been no recently realized dangers made against the Roccuzzo family.
"We're concerned, this has a colossal repercussion, we have the video pictures and we're searching for additional cameras," he said.
Rosario is a port city on the Parana stream that has bit by bit become an operational hub for drug dealing with and the most over the top vicious city Argentina, with 287 homicides in 2022.
The anti-extremist chairman, left-wing legislative head of St Nick Fe state, Omar Perotti, and middle left public government consistently pass on liability regarding counter-opiates measures and the utilization of the city's security powers to one another.
At a gathering this week between the civil, commonplace and public safety powers, common clergyman Claudio Brilloni said he had "encouraged the government powers to more noteworthy cooperation, commitment and support" in the battle against viciousness and guiltiness in Rosario.
Among the traditional resistance, two proclaimed contender for October's official political race called for help from the tactical police to battle drug-dealing with Rosario.
"The circumstance is muddled in Rosario... the medication dealers have won," said Security Priest Anibal Fernandez.
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