The city of Pedro Juan Caballero (PJC), the capital of Paraguay’s Amambay department, has been gripped by deadly violence since 15 June. Since then there has been a series of shootings between suspected criminals that have resulted in the death of five people. The violence broke out following the murder of a well-known local businessman and suspected drug trafficker, Jorge ‘Sadam’ Rafaat Toumani. This has sparked concerns among the authorities and the Paraguayan press that PJC is experiencing the onset of a ‘turf war’ between two rival drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) seeking to fill the power vacuum left by Rafaat’s…

During a routine security check of his prison cell in Uruguay on 24 May, Gerardo González Valencia, a suspected Mexican cartel leader facing charges of money laundering, made an unprecedented threat, according to the weekly magazine Búsqueda: “I’ve been tortured, forced to be naked outside in sub-zero temperatures. Tell interior minister [Eduardo] Bonomi that if he sends his guards to torture me again, he can find the highest bridge in Uruguay, because that’s where I am going to hang him from.” The threat, which was subsequently confirmed by the Uruguayan authorities, has led to growing concerns over the impact of…

With the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games drawing closer (they will be held between 5-21 August) journalists all over the world are looking for things to say about them. Hyper media coverage can at worst trigger something of a feeding frenzy, where all security risks can be amplified and exaggerated. But like any event of this kind, the risks are real: here we seek to outline some of the main ones and put them in context. At first sight, the list of threats to the Rio Olympics is daunting, and comes under at least seven major headings. In reality, some…