MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Emergency declared in Paraguay's Ciudad del Este amid growing crime rate

Some 200 law enforcement officers would be sent in from Asunción, Governor Landy Torres explained

The Paraguayan enclave of Ciudad del Este, the capital of the department of Alto Paraná, on the border with Argentina and Brazil, has been declared under emergency due to a growing wave of insecurity. Mayor Miguel Prieto spoke of an “unsustainable” situation with many robberies “that we only see in movies.” The measure will be in force for 30 days but might be extended to deal with “repeated criminal events.”

“Since the beginning of the year, several criminal acts have originated with disastrous consequences to the patrimony and physical integrity of the citizens,” Alto Paraná Governor César Landy Torres noted in his resolution. “There is a need and urgency to have agile tools to address the situation and thus be able to activate the State's reaction mechanisms,” he added.

The governor also said in a radio interview that some 200 law enforcement officers would be sent in from Asunción after talks with Interior Minister Enrique Riera.

A demonstration is scheduled for Friday [a holiday in Paraguay] in Ciudad del Este to protest against the crime wave while other events might be staged on Monday.

“What is happening next is a wave of assaults that I have never seen since I have been aware of it in my city,” Prieto said in a TV interview.

Widespread corruption at various levels of government, the private sector, and the military, the lack of a proper record-keeping system, and the influence of powerful criminal organizations, predominantly from Brazil, are behind this new set of events, according to the Global Initiative Against International Organized Crime, who also denounced that back market operations between neighboring countries have been on the rise and Paraguay is a transit zone.

At the end of 2023, the Public Prosecutor's Office carried out the so-called “Dakovo operation”, which included personnel from the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (Senad), the Brazilian Federal Police, and the United States Department of Homeland Security, which led to the seizure of weapons and cash, the product of the illegal trade between Paraguay and Brazil.