On 9 September at nightfall a unit of Brazil’s Delegacia de Polícia Marítima (Depom) detected two boats crossing the Paraná river from the San Miguel quarter of Ciudad del Este, close to the international bridge that links that city with Foz do Iguaçu. When they approached, the crews took flight on another boat, as the Brazilian police came under fire, apparently from the Paraguayan side of the river, close to the site of a naval base. The exchange of gunfire lasted about 40 minutes; no arrests were made, but a cargo of drugs, electronic goods and cigarettes was seized. The Brazilian federal police said that their attackers had used heavy-calibre weapons.
The Paraguayan media suggested that the attackers had been navy personnel. The commander of the naval base, Captain Elpidio Morán, who said he had been close to the guard post, said he had heard 14 pistols shots being fired, all on the Brazilian side, but that he had seen nothing because of dense mist on the river. Three clandestine ‘ports’ used continuously by smugglers are located within 1,000 metres of the naval base, in the districts of San Miguel, Catedral and San Rafael. It is widely believed that it would be impossible for these to operate without the acquiescence of the navy, which is basically a river police force.
That same night, after an exchange of gunfire, another Depom unit captured two boats laden with contraband and arrested two smugglers on Lake Itaipú, upstream of Foz go Iguaçu. The Brazilian federal police has located 20 clandestine ports on the banks of the huge lake. According to police estimates, every month smugglers take across the Paraná river about 15 tonnes of drugs (mainly cannabis) and US$40-50m worth of contraband. On 12 September the federal police announced that it had arrested 19 members of a Brazilian-Paraguayan smuggling gang that operated along the Paraná and distributed contraband in several Brazilian cities.
Brazil is making a big effort to shut down what has been described as a smuggling ‘liberated zone’ along the Paraná. On the banks of Lake Itaipú it has stationed a unit of the federal Força Nacional de Segurança Pública (FNSP), and the military police of Paraná state has deployed in the area two élite units, one devoted to repressing all kinds of smuggling activity (Grupo Alfa), the other specialised in drug trafficking (Grupo Samurai).
In mid-September the Brazilian defence and justice ministries launched the second phase of Operação Ágata, a drive against illegal activities along some 3,500 kilometres of Brazil’s borders with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. About 7,000 soldiers have been deployed to points in a swathe that runs from Chui in Rio Grande do Sul to Corumbá in Mato Grosso do Sul, supported by 30 military aircraft (some equipped to act under the shootdown law), an unmanned surveillance aircraft, and navy units sent to patrol the Paraná and Lake Itaipú.
Their man target is the traffic in drugs and weapons that supplies the gangs of Rio and São Paulo. The government of the three neighbouring countries were notified in advance, at the 8 September meeting in Montevideo of the foreign relations and defence ministries of countries participating in the Minustah force in Haiti (see page 17).
