Federal Police in Brazil and law enforcement officials in Paraguay and the U.S. launched on Tuesday an operation against a criminal ring suspected of selling weapons to Brazil’s major drug gangs.
According to a press statement by Brazil’s feds, a company based in Asunción, Paraguay, was responsible for importing thousands of pistols, rifles, and ammunition from several European manufacturers based in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Turkey. The operation was named Dakovo, in reference to a Croatian city.
During the course of the investigations, a Croatian manufacturer suspended the sales of weapons to the group, leading the criminals to seek suppliers in other European countries.
The firearms were imported from Europe to Paraguay, where their serial numbers were scratched off, and sold to groups of intermediaries who operated on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, where they were resold to the main criminal factions in Brazil.
Feds estimate that the company imported around 43,000 firearms to Paraguay in three years, with a total of BRL 1.2 billion (USD 241 million) in financial transactions. Over 650 of those guns were seized across the country by law enforcement officials in recent years, before today’s operation.
In a press conference, Justice Minister Flávio Dino said that the number of weapons that came to Brazil is still under investigation. Mr. Dino was recently appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to a Supreme Court seat, and his Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for December 13.
Mr. Dino said that “a logistical path” through which firearms were delivered to Brazil’s two main criminal organizations has been closed — a reference to the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (CV). He also thanked Paraguayan authorities and added that he visited Paraguay in late October to sign an agreement to fight gun trafficking.
Seventeen search and seizure warrants were executed in Brazil and 21 in Paraguay. Additionally, five people were arrested in Brazil and 14 others in Paraguay. A total of BRL 66 million (USD 13.3 million) in assets were frozen in Brazil.
Flávio Márcio Albergaria Silva, head of the Federal Police in the northeastern state of Bahia, confirmed during the press conference that Argentinian citizen Diego Dirísio is the owner of the company under investigation and that he was aware that the guns were sold to major drug gangs.
“We are trying to locate him in Paraguay”, Mr. Albergaria said, adding that Brazil will ask for his extradition. Mr. Dirísio is a target of today’s operation and remains at large.
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