Security & Strategic Review - December 2023

On 10 October a major Paraguayan criminal organisation, Clan Rotela, seized control of one of the country’s main prisons, Tacumbú, taking over 40 hostages. The gang released its hostages the following day and President Santiago Peña gave a press conference in which he denied that there was a “crisis”. However, the incident has prompted debates over the power that organised crime groups wield within the country’s prison system.