Reuters photo
By
Ricardo Swire
CARICOM’s national security intelligence officials have verified that First Capital Command (PCC) or Brazil’s most powerful prison gang’s continuous expansion, beyond strategically vital Brazil/Paraguay border communities, was assisted by collusion of corrupt police. The PCC’s growth and power surge occurred despite a March 2017 Washington assisted major Paraguayan national security initiative.
Paraguayan Special Agents and Special Operations staff comprised of Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD) and national Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) operatives attended two fourteen day, tailor-made courses, sponsored by the US Embassy and presented by multinational company Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, headquartered in Virginia, USA. Topics ranged from Advanced Criminal Investigations to Cyber Forensics. Instructors were flown in from America, Panama and Argentina.
Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions gave one Cyber Forensics computerised system to Paraguay’s National Police. The elite Special Operations Unit’s (SOU) dual purpose Narcotics Detection and Patrol K9 kits were also provided by the company. Such equipment mainly used during counter terrorism and drugs operations. Nevertheless Brazil’s PCC enterprise still enjoys domestic criminal influence stretching from its headquarters in Sao Paulo, across two-thirds of countrywide states. Brazil/Paraguay border turf wars are continuous.
On March 14, 2017 the assassination of a jailed senior Brazilian narco’s brother, while he transited border town Ponta Pora in Mata Grosso do Sul state Brazil, highlighted the underworld’s competitiveness. Pedro Juan Caballero and Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay’s eastern marijuana districts bordering Brazil are novel PCC strongholds. CARICOM intelligence reports cited evidence that identified contracted Paraguayan criminal gangs and PCC emissaries as main deal makers along the Paraguay/Brazil border.
The level of police corruption was reflected on May 20, 2012, when Paraguay’s National Police Commander and the Director of Administration were fired by the country’s president. An Interior Ministry report noted both senior law enforcers were charged with “breach of trust.” On July 18, 2018 a special law enforcement taskforce detained the Paraguay capital Asuncion’s PCC boss.
Popularly known as “Pisca” the gang’s Paraguay and Bolivia chief was wanted in Brazil on sixteen charges related to drugs and gun trafficking, criminal association, kidnapping and murder. SENAD and Brazil’s Federal Police intelligence data surmised the thirty-nine year old syndicate boss used a bogus identification to rent the posh mansion in Paraguay’s upscale Ykua Sati de Asuncion neighborhood.
Pisca was identified as mastermind of a PCC trafficking network operating between Bolivia and Paraguay. He depended on state-of-the-art close-circuit television systems for personal security and to monitor approaches to his leased mansion. For several months Pisca was secretly assisted by two co-conspirators, a Brazilian gangster and a rogue Paraguayan National Police officer.
The police accomplice functioned as Pisca’s network custodian and logistics specialist, arranging any needed fake documentation and facilitating consignment purchases. The special multi-national enforcement taskforce operation seized US$102,000 and Paraguayan Guarani 5 million cash. Two vans one Kia and one Mercedes Benz, plus one Ducati and one Honda motorcycle were impounded.
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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