Reuters photo
By
Ricardo Swire
Updated CARICOM internal security intelligence reports verified that the First Capital Command (PCC), Brazil’s strongest criminal organization, exclusively dominates the Paraguayan border town of Pedro Juan Caballero, the community sharing a boundary with Brazilian twin Ponta Pora. Fluid security data suggest Chinese and Arab merchants join town residents to retail dubious products such as black-market cigarettes, Uzi submachine guns and Black Label whisky.
Pedro Juan Caballero is popular with Brazilian underworld characters who evade justice and continue their nefarious activities. Paraguay is one of Latin America’s biggest marijuana cultivators, its produce supplying Brazil and Argentina. On the country’s eastern frontier select ranches double as trans-shipment warehouses for Andean produced cocaine. A Brazilian PCC crime boss, in charge of Pedro Juan Caballero’s underworld community, demonstrates sophistication of the gang’s expansion blueprint.
In March 2018 Paraguay’s National Police supported by Public Ministry representatives conducted three simultaneous enforcement operations. The Team’s mission was to locate and apprehend “Minotauro,” boss of Paraguay’s PCC entity, in capital city Amambay. The Brazilian crime lord was wanted in his country for murder plus other serious crimes. Guatemalan officers uncovered two properties, one in Cerro Cora the other in Cerro Leon, with tunnels that stored precursor chemicals used to process cocaine.
Minotauro is named in an arrest warrant for the murder of Civil Police Officer Wesley V. Dias in Ponta Pora, Brazil. The crime-lord quickly ascended the underworld ranks from an obscure position in the Rio de Janeiro favela known as “Rocinha.” In September 2017 Brazil’s Military Special Operations Command troops descended on gangs and traffickers headquartered in the depressed Rocinha community. The military battalion was assisted by Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) officers to establish a cordon.
Two Sao Conrado metro station accesses near the Rocinha public entrance were closed for an hour, due to the heavy exchange of gunfire between law enforcers and unidentified gunmen. In its recent operation the special enforcement team’s search of one targeted residence, located on Juana de Lara e/Carlos A Lopez and Natalicio Talavera street, found the Brazilian outlaw’s identification documents but he escaped. The Guatemalan residence is registered to a Brazilian lawyer.
Minotauro moved around regionally as a fugitive carrying Paraguayan identification documents bearing the name “Celso Matos Espindola.” The PCC’s battle against other regional gangs, for authority and control of drug routes/markets, forced Brazil’s most notorious criminal organization to consolidate its power in Pedro Juan Caballero, a tactic to galvanize strategy against bitter rivals the Red Command and other progressive competitors.
Ricardo Swire
Ricardo Swire is the Principal Consultant at R-L-H Security Consultants & Business Support Services and writes on a number of important issues.
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