MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay arrests four Americans for marijuana smuggling

Paraguayan authorities have detained four US citizens following the seizure on Saturday of a private aircraft arriving from Miami that was carrying 261.6 kilograms of marijuana with high tetrahydrocannabinol content, the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (Senad) reported on Sunday. Among those arrested is Jabari Stephen Brown, known for having won an executive aircraft valued at several million dollars in a competition organized by US YouTuber MrBeast, considered the content creator with the most followers in the world. Brown was captured on Saturday night at a hotel in Asunción, becoming the fourth member of the aircraft's crew in Paraguayan custody.

The operation took place at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, Paraguay's main air terminal, located in the city of Luque, near Asunción. According to Senad, agents intervened at the moment when several suitcases were being unloaded from the aircraft to be transferred to a vehicle bound for Asunción. The other detainees from Saturday are Marisol Rivas, Anthony Vásquez, and David Thomas Wise, also US citizens and crew members of the aircraft, according to the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color. All four were transferred from the Senad operations base to the Public Prosecutor's Office, where prosecutors charged them with international drug trafficking.

Senad reported on Sunday, in addition, that Estonian citizen Keith Siilats, identified by the institution as a co-founder of the US micromobility company Bolt Mobility, is allegedly the owner and pilot of the seized aircraft. According to intelligence information cited by the anti-drug agency, Siilats had left Paraguayan territory on Saturday morning, hours before the police intervention. Bolt Mobility, founded in the United States in 2018, operated a shared electric scooter service in several US cities before its bankruptcy in 2022.

The shipment corresponds to a variety known in the market as “premium marijuana,” characterized by its high content of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive component of cannabis. Senad estimated that each kilogram of the substance could have a value of approximately USD 14,000 on the Brazilian market, which would place the total value of the seized shipment at around USD 3.66 million. The operation falls within a growing pattern of the use of Paraguayan territory as a transit point for illicit goods bound for the Brazilian and European markets. Paraguay and Brazil have maintained since 2024 a reinforced cooperation protocol on cross-border air traffic control, as part of the regional effort to contain the advance of transnational drug trafficking networks in the River Plate basin.