Paraguay expels 25 Brazilian criminals to serve sentences in Brazil

In an operation that was kept top secret due to concerns about the rescue operation and was only announced this Friday, Paraguay immediately expelled 25 Brazilian criminals serving sentences in that country’s prisons and handed them over to Brazil. The operation, the largest ever carried out between two neighboring countries, was carried out at two different points: on the border between Paraguay and Brazil in the area of ​​​​the city of Foz do Iguaçu in the state of Paraná and in the area of ​​​​the city of Ponta Poran, in state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

In both cases, the prisoners were escorted by large Paraguayan National Police forces to the border and handed over to the Brazilian Federal Police, which also set up a large security apparatus on the Brazilian side. Both borders were closed for a period of time to ensure the transfer of prisoners without the risk of any violence from the groups to which they belonged.

The 25 criminals currently transferred to Brazil are members of two of Brazil’s largest criminal organizations: PCC, Primeiro Comando da Capital, which originated in São Paulo, and CV, Comando Vermelho, which originated in Rio de Janeiro, but both are already active. throughout the country and even in neighboring countries. They were chosen from among the Brazilian prisoners considered the most dangerous to serve their sentences in Paraguay, and it is likely that more will follow after this major operation.

All of the criminals were serving sentences in Paraguay for crimes committed in that country, but they also have arrest warrants in Brazil for crimes such as murder and drug trafficking. They will now be sent to prisons in the states of Sao Paulo, Goiás, Rio Grande do Norte, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul.

The completed transfer was the culmination of a police cooperation operation between both countries that intensified last year. In 2023, Brazil’s federal police sent several agents to Paraguay to verify the identities of Brazilians arrested in that country, and about 300 were found, some using false identities.

Of these 300, Brazilian agents determined that 50 had arrest warrants in Brazil, and it was decided that Paraguay would expel 25 people considered the most important in the criminal organizations with which they were associated, and those with the longest sentences. This action is also part of the Paraguayan government’s policy to get rid of foreign prisoners, mainly Brazilians, who even commit crimes in this country even behind bars, and to structure Brazilian criminal organizations on Paraguayan territory, whose dispute over power and money has turned the gigantic border between the two countries into war zone, with dozens of murders.