generalspeaking

The Security of Paraguayan Criminal Security Institutions

"It's an operation that took days and it is impossible that the officials did not realize that they were leaving ... obviously this was a paid plan."
"[The amount of soil shifted could not have passed unnoticed and was easily visible from the prison corridor.]"
Justice Minister Cecilia Perez, Paraguay

The Paraguayan justice ministry announced that 91 federally imprisoned members of the country's most notorious drug cartel gang had escaped from a prison on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. The number of escapees was later downgraded to 75, still at large, among them 40 Brazilians, the rest Paraguayans. A tunnel was discovered, beginning in a cell, ending outside the prison walls. The tunnel was originally cited as the escape route.

Despite which it appeared that most of the prisoners merely walked out the main door to freedom. Some, according to investigators, may have left the prison in days previous to the mass 'escape'. All were members of the First Command of the Capital (PCC) drug gang, which boasts over ten thousand members, one of Brazil's largest criminal organizations dominating the drug trade and prisons in Sao Paulo. Only latterly has it reached into Paraguay.

Investigators also now believe that officials at the prison were well aware of an impending mass escape, including the tunnel digging. The prison director of the penitentiary in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero was fired alongside six other prison officials. Fired? Only fired? Not arrested, charged, sent to trial, found guilty given all the evidence, and themselves imprisoned? A peculiar view of security and justice, obviously.

Handout picture released by Paraguay’s ABC TV showing armed forces taking position following the escape of 75 inmates from the prison in Pedro Juan Caballero, 500 kilometres northeast of Asuncion, on January 19, 2020. HO/AFP via Getty Images

The tunnel seems to have taken weeks of labour, with the amount of soil shifted extremely noticeable, visible to anyone who had the interest of observing. Dozens of bags of soil were piled in the cell where the tunnel was started. The cartel unleashed a wave of violence in 2012, including over 200 murders, protesting the election of Sao Paulo's mayor, Fernando Haddad.

InSight Crime, which investigates organized crime in Latin America, indicates that the PCC was responsible for several large heists, including the biggest armed robbery in the history of crime in Paraguay where the headquarters of security company Prosegur in Ciudad del Este was attacked. In 2017 the PCC was trying to recruit members of Colombia's FARC rebel group to take advantage of their heavy weaponry experience.

"In that area [of Brazil] there are many woods and they know the territory ... these are highly dangerous people", stated Paraguayan Attorney General Sandra Quinonez, of the prisoners believed to have crossed the border from Paraguay into Brazil.

"If they return to Brazil, they will get a one-way ticket to a federal penitentiary", responded Brazilian Justice Minister Sergio Moro, prepared to aid Paraguay recapture the escapees, working with border-state authorities to stop their re-entry to Brazil. The assumption of course being that the Brazilian penal institutions are less corrupt and more secure than those of their Paraguayan neighbours.

Handout picture released by Paraguay’s ABC TV showing armed forces taking position following the escape of 76 inmates from the prison in Pedro Juan Caballero, 500 kilometers northeast of Asuncion, on January 19, 2020. HO/AFP via Getty Images

Labels: Brazil, Breakout, Drug Cartels, Paraguay, Prisoners

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 22, 2020