RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Five people were shot dead within eight hours this Sunday (19) in Ponta Porã (MS), on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. The region is dominated by criminal factions, such as the First Capital Command (PCC), which dispute the drug and arms trafficking routes from that country to Brazil. It was the bloodiest weekend in the region since July 9.
In one of the attacks this Sunday, three men were surprised when they were in front of a convenience store in Jardim Primavera, on the outskirts of Ponta Porã. Two occupants of a motorcycle got off and unloaded their pistols. The three were hit by several shots, but one survived.
One of the victims tried to take refuge in a grocery store but was pursued and shot several times. The dead were identified as Aldenir Alves and Joaquim Antônio da Silva. Their ages were not disclosed. The wounded man was taken to the Regional Hospital, and there was no information about his health condition. According to the police, the pickup truck occupants were covering the shooters.
Another crime killed Ederson Benites Cano, 28 when he arrived at his house in Vila Ferroviária. According to the victim’s wife, who witnessed the execution, a man approached him and fired several shots. Ederson tried to run, but the criminal kept shooting until he fell in the middle of the street. The suspect fled
Orlando Batista da Silva, 53, was killed with several shots to the head when he was cutting the grass in the garden of his residence in Vila Áurea, Ponta Porã. According to witnesses, a man arrived on a motorcycle, stopped on the other side of the street, approached Silva with a gun in hand, and shot him six times. Then the gunman got on his motorcycle and fled.
The fifth death occurred on the Paraguayan side of the border. A Paraguayan couple’s car was shot at by dozens of bullets. The man, identified as Mariano Ortega, died when he was admitted to the hospital in Pedro Juan Caballero. His wife was transferred to a hospital in Bela Vista, Brazil, and was in stable condition as of this morning, Monday 20th.
According to the Secretary of Justice and Public Safety of Mato Grosso do Sul, Antonio Carlos Videira, the first investigations indicate that these are crimes related to other homicides in the region. “It looks more like revenge of some groups than the action of criminal factions.
However, there is no doubt that the crimes may be related to drug trafficking and other crimes, but only the conclusion of the investigations will clarify,” he said.
The city of Ponta Porã, with 95,000 inhabitants, registered 40 homicides from January to November 30 this year, an increase of 5.3% in relation to the same period last year. The projection for this year is a rate of 46.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, three times higher than the state rate of 14.7 deaths per 100,000.
The region has been in a war situation since 2016 when the PCC began to compete with other factions, such as the Comando Vermelho (CV), for the routes to send marijuana and cocaine to Brazil. In recent months, death squads calling themselves “border vigilantes” have also started executing suspects involved in thefts and robberies in the region.
SLAUGHTER
On July 9 of this year, there was an equal number of victims: four people, among them two Brazilian medical students, were executed with dozens of shots after leaving a nightclub in Pedro Juan Caballero, a city neighboring Ponta Porã. A fifth attack killed a councilman in the Brazilian city.
In that massacre, one of the victims was Haylee Carolina Acevedo Yunis, 21 years old, daughter, of the governor of the department (state) of Amambay, Ronald Acevedo. Brazilians Kaline Reinoso de Oliveira, 22, and Rhannye Jamilly Borges de Oliveira, 18, also medical students and friends of Haylee, died.
According to the police, the target of the attack was Omar Vicente Alvarez Grace, “Bebeto”, 32 years old, also killed. The killers fired more than 100 rifle and pistol shots. Paraguayan police arrested six suspects. A seventh was murdered. The investigation pointed to links between the PCC and the crimes.