Asuncion, Paraguay — Paraguayan authorities announced on Tuesday the largest seizure of cocaine in the country’s history, after officials were surprised to find more than 4 tons of the drug hidden inside a shipment of sugar bound for Belgium.
President Santiago Peña told reporters that the discovery of the record, codenamed “Operation Sweetness,” added to a series of “very sad episodes” in Paraguay that had transformed the strategically located nation into a key drug trafficking center in the region.
Peña expressed hope that the seizure, valued at approximately $240 million, would disrupt cocaine trafficking and said police were pursuing those responsible.
“I think it sends a signal to organized gangs not to use Paraguay as transit; They are going to find authorities that are determined and working in a coordinated manner,” said Peña, promising greater efforts to promote port security. “The gangs are not going to be able to avoid all the controls that we are implementing.”
On Monday, agents from Paraguay’s anti-drug agency, known as Senad, began unpacking containers filled with 40-kilogram bags of sugar at Puerto Caacupemi, a river port in the capital, Asunción. On Tuesday they were still sorting and weighing the cocaine hidden inside the shipment.
It was not immediately clear where the drugs originated. Unlike neighbors Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, Paraguay does not produce cocaine. But in recent years the small landlocked nation has grabbed headlines as smuggling shelter (for cigarettes and luxury goods as well as drugs) as cartel bosses devise new routes to reach new markets. This has generated corruption and even violence in a country that was previously unaccustomed to drug trafficking violence.
Some of the largest cocaine seizures in Europe, especially in the port of Antwerp in Belgium, can be traced back to the bustling river ports of Paraguay, where dubious deliveries can go undetected.
“Geographically, Paraguay has a strategic position for organized crime in the sense that we are located near the largest cocaine producers in the world,” said Francisco Ayala, Senad spokesman, from the port where authorities inspected the cocaine shipment. . “It has a world-renowned river traffic system… it’s perfect.”
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