Via Paraguay, the illegal arms trade fuels organized crime in Brazil

Just set foot in Ciudad del Este, Salto Del Guairá, or Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguayan cities on the border with Brazil, to buy weapons and ammunition without hindrance.

In the variety of stores available, organized crime in Brazil is a guaranteed clientele to choose weapons of all styles and calibers displayed in the windows.

The negotiation is fast, without many requirements.

If the clients prefer, they can pay a little more to have the weapons delivered to Foz do Iguaçu, a city in the western region of Paraná.

Paraguay is not a warfare production country.

However, it has appeared as one of the leading suppliers to the Brazilian criminal market for decades, says the Federal Police (PF) chief Marco Smith.

What is displayed in shop windows or for sale in large commercial areas is a small part of what the neighboring country offers.

There is a specialized market to meet the enormous demand the Federal Police have identified.

Weapons and ammunition trafficking grows at the same pace that criminal factions expand and conquer territories.

“The growth of criminal factions is directly linked to the increase in their armaments,” warns the delegate, who has been working on the Brazilian border with Paraguay for 15 years.

THE PATH OF TRAFFICKING IN PARAGUAY

Paraguayan groups that serve as major arms suppliers to Brazil are investing in an importation tactic that has Brazil as a key player and not only as the final destination.

Part of these shipments arrives in Paraguay via the Port of Paranaguá, according to the diagnosis of the Federal Police.

In a year, the number of containers arriving at the Paranaguá port and heading to Paraguay via the Paranaguá Container Terminal (TCP) increased almost tenfold.

In 2020, 600 containers destined for or departing from Paraguay passed through the station.

The following year there were 5,500: 91% loaded with cargo imported by the neighboring country, while 9% had Paraguayan products destined for export.

Although statistics for 2022 are not yet available, it is believed that the volume may have doubled.

“It is clear that most of the cargoes are licit, but in the middle, there is a portion that uses the port to bring weapons to Paraguay, coming from markets such as Eastern Europe or the United States, and that are then resold to Brazilian organized crime,” says the police chief.

Even with the diagnosis, the difficulty in examining and identifying the illicit cargo exists because the weapons most targeted by criminals arrive fragmented.

“Mainly, rifles don’t arrive in one piece; they arrive in parts to be assembled later.”

“Many of these parts don’t even have a registration number, which makes it impossible to trace them, which facilitates the importation and then the assembly for illegal resale,” he explains.

From these random parts, weapons are assembled in sequence.

“It’s not the best weapon, but it works well. If we observe the attacks in Rio Grande do Norte, the weapons of organized crime were exactly with these characteristics.”

MARCO SMITH, FEDERAL POLICE (PF) CHIEF

According to the chief, the non-interception in Brazil of these cargoes is based on an agreement that determines a kind of import and export corridor between Brazil and Paraguay, through which the containers do not undergo a thorough inspection.

The assistant delegate of the Customs of the Federal Revenue Service in the Port of Paranaguá, Gerson Zanetti Faucz, explains that all containers arriving in import transit go through a small control to check the goods.

There is an analysis of the items that can be transported in Brazil, besides identifying illicit or false declarations.

“But 98% of the containers go straight on without any [detailed] inspection, only with a risk analysis, when the Internal Revenue Service seals the container.”

“The transport has a route to follow, usually through BR-277, with an hour to arrive [in Foz do Iguaçu],” says the IRS chief.

From Foz do Iguaçu, the cargo then continues its journey through Paraguay.

The loads are weighed when they leave the port and arrive in the customs process in Foz do Iguaçu to confirm that nothing was taken out or included in them.

According to the chief, a risk analysis of the loads occurs to avoid the passage of illegal products.

“When it’s a company that has never done [import] transit, and when it’s a different material, we open and check what’s inside.”

“The containers are also scanned to identify possible illicit products. We never get weapons. We usually identify electronics and other products that cannot be transported in Brazil,” reinforced Faucz.

FROM THE PORT TO PARAGUAY

Upon entering Paraguay, the containers proceed to the capital, Asunción, by land route.

“Brazilians cannot buy weapons [large volume] in Paraguay, so middle people make acquisitions for resale to criminal groups.”

“It is an extremely profitable market when you think that, to assemble a rifle, a criminal will spend about US$600, and it will be resold in the faction bases for up to US$11,260,” warns the PF delegate.

From the Paraguayan capital, the loads leave for the border cities, where the negotiations are usually carried out.

Another important route for the arms to arrive in Paraguay is by air.

Aircrafts loaded with this equipment often land in the Chaco region, dominated by criminal groups.

From Chaco, they fly to strategic cities until they reach the Brazilian buyers on the border.

From there, the route is the same as for cigarette smuggling.

To facilitate the transactions, the two largest Brazilian criminal factions have established territory on the border, says the delegate.

“The São Paulo faction, for example, has been eliminating middlemen all along the line. So members of the faction itself coordinate the whole process for the purchase and trafficking of weapons and ammunition,” Smith clarifies.

POLICE

Marcelo Adriano, a shooting instructor, and former Armed Forces officer for 13 years, criticizes the disarmament policy in Brazil.

Marcelo Adriano says that, besides criminals thirsty for guns and ammunition, the disarmament policy may reflect increased trafficking among people who want a gun for self-defense.

When questioning the recent gun regulation adopted by the Lula government, Marcelo highlights that the change was made without criteria and without listening to the involved entities, such as those who are part of the formal Brazilian gun industry or legal importers.

“The segment represents a thriving economy with more than 3 million formal jobs [in the entire chain of arms in Brazil, from production to imports, sales, and shooting clubs], so the restriction of weapons in the country will also have this economic impact reflected in the increase of illegalities,” he says.

According to Adriano, Brazil’s policies to grant access to legal weapons obey several inspection, control, and tracking criteria.

“The criminals will continue buying illegal weapons. The difference now is that the society that wants a registered, legalized gun for sport or to defend itself from the criminal carrying an illegal gun that risks its security can’t have one.”

“The disarmament policy is revanchist,” he criticizes.

The instructor warns that this way, the path to illegality is widened even more since the presidential decree also limits access to ammunition and may reflect in the increase of ammunition trafficking among those who have legalized weapons.

“And I reinforce: the bandit will continue to be armed. These policies need to be reviewed with criteria,” he reiterates.

WHERE DO THE ILLEGAL WEAPONS COME FROM?

According to PF delegate Marco Smith, many of the weapons sold to Brazilian criminals come from the United States, Israel, Eastern Europe, and Latin American armies.

“We can’t just look at the weapons.”

“A gun without ammunition means nothing, so in this same route are the ammunitions that usually come from the same countries, especially those from Eastern Europe,” he reinforces.

For transportation through Brazil, according to the mapping of the Federal and Federal Highway Police, the path taken by traffickers is the same as for the smuggling of cigarettes and electronics.

Besides side roads, country roads, and state highways with little flow of vehicles and little surveillance, the loads that leave Pedro Juan Caballero or Salto Del Guairá pass through the BR-272, which connects the west with the north of Paraná and then goes on to the large consumers in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and states in the north and northeast.

When the arms and ammunition leave Cidade do Leste, passing through Foz do Iguaçu, the route is along the BR-277, which cuts through Paraná from east to west.

The most common transportation model continues to be overland, according to the findings of the security forces.

The “antsy traffic” corresponds to small loads, with few weapons, generally of low caliber.

“These are usually cargoes for emergency supply to criminal groups.”

“The bulk of the weaponry is from shipments in false bottoms of trucks, often in the middle of licit cargoes, or shipments of smuggled cigarettes,” says the PF chief.

The apple of the eye for the criminal factions is rifle cargo.

The route of weapons on the border is rapidly spreading throughout the country.

The main buyers, according to Smith, do Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo coordinate criminal groups.

Still, consumption is growing in other regions of the country, where different groups are consolidating.

This month, the Federal Police in Paraná launched Operation Orange-Tip, with seven search and seizure warrants issued by the 1st Federal Court of Ponta Grossa, in the Campos Gerais region of Paraná.

The warrants were for this city and also for São Paulo.

For Marco Smith, the operation is the tip of a gigantic iceberg.

“We have been working on the investigations to trace the money of the criminal organizations. From there, it is possible to disarticulate these groups,” he highlights.

THE DEMAND FOR MORE PERSONNEL AND INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY ON THE BORDER

In the Institute for Economic and Social Development of the Borderlands (Idesf) diagnosis, a perception is latent.

“Trafficking, in general, has a quick impact on public safety in the border cities, which are usually among the most violent in the country,” says the organization’s president, Luciano Barros.

For him, crime thrives on the inefficiency of the state.

“Organized crime doesn’t need to bid, has no bureaucracy, doesn’t respect norms and rules, and has a lot of money,” reflects Barros while defending processes of debureaucratization in public service.

In his view, an efficient response to crime on Brazil’s border with Paraguay would be, besides the increase in personnel of the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Patrol, and the Internal Revenue Service, to focus on investments and integration of the technological apparatus.

“There is a lack of strategic vision to guarantee agility to this apparatus that already exists. This has been missing for a long time.”

“Why don’t we integrate the existing technological mechanisms among the public security forces?”

“The municipal entity does not talk to the state entity that does not talk to the federal entity. This cannot happen.”

“This would speed up inspection, control, and the state’s advance over criminal groups,” he criticizes.

ACTION SEIZES WEAPONS IN TRUCKS COMING FROM PARAGUAY

One of the successful actions of the security forces happened in January when the Military Police of Paraná seized 161 firearms hidden in two trucks of Paraguayan origin that were transporting rice.

The case was registered on state highway PR-323 between the towns of Iporã and Perobal in the northwest region of Paraná.

The seized volume was the largest ever recorded in a single action by the corporation throughout the state.

The military road police officers were running an operation at the Iporã Highway Station when they approached a truck.

During the inspection, which a sniffer dog supported, the illicit cargo was found hidden in a false bottom, with pistols, rifles, and 12-gauge shotguns, in addition to accessories and supplies for reloading.

With information from Gazeta do Povo