Deadly Heist Shakes a South American Borderland Trying to Shed Its Lawless Image
In that episode and this week’s heist in Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan authorities said they suspected a Brazilian prison
gang, commonly referred to as the P.C.C., or Primeiro Comando da Capital in Portuguese, of carrying out the crimes.
While news reports in Paraguay and Brazil initially claimed
that the thieves had stolen about $40 million, Liliana Denice Duarte, a Paraguayan prosecutor investigating the case, said that about $10 million was stolen.
In the dead of night, the squad of outlaws set cars ablaze on the streets of Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan
city on the so-called Triple Frontier where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina share a border.
The Paraguayan authorities had been trying to reinvent Ciudad del Este as a low-cost outsourcing center for Brazilian manufacturers,
drawing inspiration from Mexican border cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez that lure American companies.
The heist in Ciudad del Este followed similar armed robberies of Prosegur in 2015
and 2016 in the Brazilian cities of Campinas, Santos and Ribeirão Prêto in which the equivalent of millions of dollars was also reported stolen.
