Brazil & Southern Cone - January 2022

Paraguay’s land border with Brazil, a traditionally lawless area rife with organised crime, is suffering from an ongoing spate of bloody violence. In 2021 well over 100 people lost their lives in execution-style attacks on both sides of the border.

One of the most recent days of carnage was 19 December 2021, when a total of five people were killed in separate attacks: four were shot in three separate attacks in Ponta Porã, on the Brazilian side of the border in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The fifth was killed on the Paraguayan side of the border, in Pedro Juan Caballero, Amambay department.  

This was the twin cities’ bloodiest day since 9 October, when four young people were gunned down on their way out of a nightclub in Pedro Juan Caballero. The victims of the quadruple murder included Haylee Acevedo Yunes, the 21-year-old daughter of the governor of Amambay department, and Osmar Álvarez Grance ‘Bebeto’, 29, a local criminal who was believed to be the target of the attack. That same week, a Ponta Porã city councillor and a Pedro Juan Caballero policeman were also killed.

Overall, in early November, Paraguayan daily ABC Color reported that 22 people had been killed on both sides of the border in the previous month and a half. Most of these murders were carried out by hit men riding past on motorbikes, although in some cases the victims’ bodies were discovered after they had been reported missing. Some of the murders appeared to be ‘signed’, with the killers leaving notes signed off as the ‘Justicieros de la Frontiera’ (Frontier Vigilantes), for example.   

Drug-related violence?

These execution-style murders are largely believed to be drugs-related, although there does also seem to be a spiral of revenge killings. ‘Bebeto’, the presumed target of the 9 October quadruple homicide, allegedly had ties to drug trafficking. Following the wave of murders on 19 December, the public security secretary for Mato Grosso do Sul, Antonio Carlos Videira, said the crimes were probably related to previous killings. “It’s more like revenge by some groups than actions from criminal organisations”, he said, adding “However, there is no doubt that the crimes may be related to drug trafficking and other crimes, but this will only be clarified after the conclusion of the investigations”. Most of the murders of the last few months remain unresolved.

The border between Paraguay and Brazil is notoriously porous, and this is particularly true for the Pedro Juan Caballero-Ponta Porã section of the frontier: the two cities sit side-by-side with no geographical features separating them, such as the rivers which divide other main border crossings between the two countries. Ponta Porã is therefore a key entrance point to Brazil for drugs, namely cocaine produced in Bolivia and marijuana cultivated in Paraguay. From Ponta Porã, the drugs are then sent all over Brazil, where they are sold on the domestic market or trafficked internationally, primarily to Europe.

Different Brazilian factions have fought for control of these drug routes, and smaller local drug gangs also operate in the region, but it is Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) drug trafficking organisation (DTO) that currently dominates. Public security experts note that the current violence plaguing the Paraguayan-Brazilian border has been a regular feature since 2016, when local drug kingpin Jorge Rafaat Toumani, known as the ‘king of cocaine’, was killed on the orders of the PCC.