The surprise visit to Paraguay of CIA’s number two, known as the “sanctions guru”

Paraguayan President Mario Abdo met with US Central Intelligence Agency deputy director David Cohen, nicknamed the “sanctions guru.”

According to the US embassy, the official’s visit addressed “shared strategies for combating global threats”.

The CIA deputy director made a surprise visit to Paraguay to meet with President Abdo just a few hours before the South American president traveled to the US to visit US military bases.

The meeting occurred on March 29 at Mburuvicha Róga, the Paraguayan presidential residence in Asunción.

Abdo wrote on Twitter that it was an instance of dialogue on the “strengthening of cooperation” between both countries “in national security”.

The US embassy in Asunción indicated that the meeting took place in the framework of a “robust bilateral cooperation between the US and Paraguay” and that “shared strategies for the fight against global threats were addressed” without specifying which ones.

Cohen, who was only in Paraguay for 24 hours, also met with the Minister of the National Intelligence Secretariat (SNI), Esteban Aquino.

The entity considered the visit of the US official as “significant” and highlighted Paraguay’s efforts for the “defense of democracy and the fight against global terrorism”.

The US security expert has been serving as deputy director of the CIA since 2021 when the Biden Administration appointed him as deputy to diplomat William Burns.

The official had already held the same position in 2015, under the presidency of Barack Obama (2009-2017).

During his first tenure as deputy intelligence director, he oversaw the agency’s strategic modernization and led foreign intelligence collection.

Before joining the CIA, he served as undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department, a position from which he oversaw the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

However, he is best known for being responsible for administering economic sanctions.

He not only developed strategies against terrorist organizations but also worked on sanctions against several countries.

Iran, Russia, and North Korea were some of the nations to which the measures planned by Cohen were applied.

For this task, he received the nickname of “sanctions guru” in Washington.

Cohen’s international visit to Paraguay comes a week after the Government of Joe Biden banned the entry to his country of the former head of the National Directorate of Civil Aeronautics of the Guaraní nation, Édgar Melgarejo, the member of the Council of the Magistrature, Jorge Bogarin, and the judicial official Vicente Ferreira, accused of alleged acts of corruption.

The sanctions against the Paraguayan politicians are in addition to those already imposed on former president Horacio Cartes (2013-2018) and acting vice-president Hugo Velázquez.

Days before, the Paraguayan Foreign Minister, Julio César Arriola Ramírez, met with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in Washington.

The meeting was held before the visit of the Paraguayan president to the US to visit military bases and other units of the US Army in the city of Tampa, in the state of Florida.

The bi-national exchange occurs one month before Paraguayans go to the polls to renew the national executive.

With information from Sputnik