Another point for the Brazilian authorities even though this time the applauses go also to the Paraguayan police who on Sunday, September 3, seized a war arsenal in the Brazil-Paraguay border containing 591 weapons and about 6,000 boxes of ammunition, all bound for São Paulo where they would be used by the prison-gang PCC (First Command of the Capital).
The arms and ammunition were estimated to be worth around US$ 1 million. They were found wrapped in plastic inside a well in the backyard of a house in the town of Pedro Juan Caballero, a Paraguayan city on the border of Mato Grosso do Sul state, in the west of Brazil. Besides revolvers, pistols and shotguns the police have also impounded antiaircraft ammunition.
Brazilian Alberto Dornelles Rodrigues, charged with possessing the illegal weapons, was arrested by the Paraguayan authorities and delivered to Brazil’s federal police. He is now in custody in the Brazilian city of Campo Grande.
Brazil had been following his moves for the last six months. He deals with fish equipment in Paraguay, where he has a store, but according to the police he is also one of the main suppliers of weapons for drug traffickers in Rio and São Paulo.
Last month, the Paraguayan police apprehended another big shipment of guns and ammunitions in the hands of Dornelles. They were to be delivered to the favelas in São Paulo and Rio.
The São Paulo authorities informed during a press conference that the last cargo of weapons were to be shipped to the gang PCC. Said prosecutor Arnaldo Giuzzio, "There were found 222 revolvers of different calibers, 195 pistols of 9 mm caliber, 174 semi-automatic assault shotguns and rifles, as well as 8,665 projectiles of calibers 7.62 mm, 9 mm and 38 mm."
Thanks to a half-a-million dollars US donation, Paraguay’s Antidrug National Secretariat (Senad) inaugurated, on August 22, in Pedro Juan Caballero a base with capacity for 50 agents and two helicopters.
The area is a distribution center for arms and drugs, connecting the supplies of Colombia and Bolivia to the market of Europe and the United States.
