Paraguay's prison system became evident on Sunday as one of the weakest points of the Government presided over by the conservative Mario Abdo Benítez with the escape of 75 members of the Brazilian criminal group First Capital Command (PCC) , and the suspicion that they escaped with the support of the criminal authorities of Pedro Juan Caballero.

The escape occurred at dawn and supposedly through a tunnel, although different voices of the Government pointed out that it could not occur without the complicity of guards or officials of that prison, located in that city, capital of the department of Amambay and border with Brazil .

In this regard, Interior Minister Euclides Acevedo did not rule out a local chain that the tunnel would have been built as a facade to hide that collaboration from inside the prison.

For her part, the Minister of Justice, Cecilia Pérez , with two months in office, recalled that her department had announced last December that it had information on a flight plan in several prisons in the country of leaders of the PCC, one of them that of Pedro Juan Caballero. According to these reports, about 80,000 dollars would be provided from the PCC to enable these leaks .

The minister announced in that appearance the dismissal of the director general of Corrections, the director and several guards of the jail. He was also in favor of extending the Penitentiary Emergency Law sanctioned in September by Abdo Benítez after several confrontations and riots in some penalties in the country.

The law establishes the reinforcement of security in penalties with a military presence on their perimeters, and authorizes the Ministry of Justice to expand its budget and strengthen its staff "as an exception" in the absence of custodians.

"Extremely serious fact"

The minister called a press conference at the headquarters of the Ministry to give details about the escape, which occurred at dawn, which he described as "extremely serious. Unprecedented, a matter of national security."

According to the minister, among the escapees would be six lieutenants of "Minotaur" , detained a year ago in Brazil and one of the PCC chiefs, a group associated with drug and arms trafficking, which has one of its operational centers in Pedro Juan Caballero In Paraguay.

Perez said in November, when he took office, that the fight against organized crime, both that of local groups and those that originated in Brazil, would be one of the axes of his administration, together with the reform of the prison system. The minister replaced Eber Ovelar , being the third head of Justice of the Government of Abdo Benítez.

Ovelar, who claimed health reasons for his resignation, after two months in office, replaced Julio Ríos , who was dismissed as a result of the rescue of Jorge Samudio , a leader of the Vermelho Command, the other Brazilian criminal group present in Paraguay.

Samudio was released by an armed group that assaulted the prison van in which he moved from the Palace of Justice to the Ambush penitentiary, which resulted in the death of one of the police officers who guarded him.

The continuation of Ríos in office was in focus since June, when two riots in two Paraguayan prisons, starring members of the PCC left 10 deaths and 17 injured .

'VIP' cells

Ovelar and Pérez were favorable to expedite the extradition processes to Brazil of the most dangerous leaders of the CCP who are serving sentences in Paraguay, around eighty.

It is recognized from prison institutions that many of those prisoners enjoy "VIP cells", with television, refrigerators and computers, thanks to bribes to officials . The PCC also has Paraguayan "soldiers", many of whom are recruited in prisons, authorities admit. That corruption makes these criminals prefer to serve their sentences in Paraguay.

The most notorious case was that of Brazilian drug trafficker Marcelo Pinheiro, aka "Pilot," who in November 2018 killed an 18-year-old girl who went to visit the Specialized Group in Asunción, where he was being held.

It is believed that "Pilot" sought to have an open cause in Paraguay to comply with prison sentences in the country and avoid extradition to Brazil. However, the Executive decided days later to expel him so as not to "wait any longer for the Justice process," Abdo Benítez said today.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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