The alleged narco, prosecuted in Brazil, Marcus Vinicius Espíndola not only enjoyed the friendship of former Minister Arnaldo Giuzzio, since in his agenda of friendly relations and economic interests with referents of the current government, the former Minister of Public Works and current Presidential candidate Arnoldo Wiens, with whom he apparently had a close bond of friendship. The government of Mario Abdo is pointed out as an accomplice of the drug trafficking scheme. During the current administration, drug export records were broken.
Source: By Jorge Torres Romero and Cinthia Mora
By Jorge Torres Romero and Cinthia Mora
The alleged drug trafficker Marcus Vinicius Espindola Marqués de Padua, arrested in Brazil on February 16 of this year, enjoyed important friendships with prominent government figures. These suspicious drug ties of the Paraguayan authorities are added to the series of measures adopted by the Government of Mario Abdo Benítez, which suspiciously ended up benefiting the drug traffickers’ scheme.
The one pointed out by the Brazilian Police as a front-line drug trafficker, is accused of being a main nexus of the Italian mafia, to which he would provide a large quantity of high-purity cocaine, dispatched from Paraguay. Here, Marcus Vinicius Marquis of Padua owned the company Black Eagle Group SA, in charge of manufacturing high-end armored vehicles, one of which he lent to the then Minister of the Interior, Arnaldo Giuzzio, to walk with his family on the beaches. from Brazil. It was because of this link with the drug trafficker that Giuzzio ended up being removed from the first ring of President Mario Abdo Benítez.
According to a tax investigation, Giuzzio allegedly received favors from the apparent Brazilian drug trafficker who pretended to be a supplier to the State, meanwhile, in parallel, he sought to advance with anti-drug operations amid leaks of sensitive information in favor of the drug traffickers. The Prosecutor’s Office charged him with aggravated passive bribery (bribery) after his counterpart in Brazil sent the extracts of the conversations he had with the alleged drug trafficker captured in the Turf operation, which made it clear that the former government leader in the fight against drug trafficking of Mario Abdo Benítez was closely linked to a suspected member of a major international drug trafficking organization.
But Marcus Vinicius not only enjoyed the friendship of former minister Arnaldo Giuzzio, since in his agenda of friendly relations and economic interests with referents of the current government, he also included the former Minister of Public Works and current official presidential candidate Arnoldo Wiens, with whom apparently He had a close bond of friendship.
Another meeting, where the presidential candidate for the ruling party, Arnoldo Wiens shares with the alleged drug trafficker, Marcus Vinicius Espíndola.
Photographs brought to the La Caja Negra team show Vinicius posing with Wiens, not long ago, in what, according to the ruling party, was a meeting of friends from when Vice President Hugo Velázquez was still the abbot candidate for the presidential elections of 2023. In one of the snapshots Wiens is seen with Marcus, in addition to other people who accompanied them. But this would not have been the only meeting of both, since a second photograph was captured at another time, in front of a barbecue.
NARCOGOVERNMENT: “BOOM” OF DRUG SHIPMENTS ABROAD
Colorado senator Enrique Riera appeared a few days ago before the Bicameral Investigation Commission (CBI) for the investigation of punishable acts of money laundering and other related crimes of Congress, where he exposed the rise of drug exports in Paraguay under the management of the President of the Republic , Mario Abdo Benítez, going from being a country known as a producer of marijuana, to becoming a true narco-state through which tons of drugs are sent abroad.
According to the report presented to the CBI, in the last three years – coinciding with Marito’s mandate – 47 tons of “Paraguayan” cocaine were seized, both in our country and in European seaports. But making a comparison between local and foreign seizures, a marked difference is seen. From 2020 to 2022, four important loads of 1,331 kilos, 3,400 kilos, 10,964 kilos and 5,170 kilos fell in Belgium. In addition to the 16,174 kilos in Germany and the 4,178 in the Netherlands. In that same period, only 2,906 kilos were seized in Terport-Villeta and 3,415 kilos in Fernando de la Mora.
Narco partner and supplier of armor to Giuzzio.
?Narco partner and armored supplier to Giuzzio, from “Amores” with Wiens.
?With the current government, drug export records were broken.#LCNPy? pic.twitter.com/K46VYUV5IZ
– The Black Box (@CajaNegraPy) October 5, 2022
According to Riera, of the total number of drugs trafficked, only 10% is seized, so it is estimated that around 470 tons of drugs were moved through Paraguay, equivalent to a total of 25 billion dollars, which which is 2 times our national spending budget.
Added to this is that in May 2020, at the height of drug exports from Paraguay and when the figures for seizures of tons of cocaine sent from our country to Europe began to double, the then Senad minister, Arnaldo Giuzzio, signed a resolution eliminating the Air, River and Land Investigation Directorate (DIAFT). This made it possible for drug traffickers to contaminate loads of legal products and thus have a free hand to export cocaine.
The lack of a fight against drug trafficking in the current administration of the State was even more noticeable with the excessive delay in the National Customs Directorate, in charge of Julio Fernández, to acquire modern X-ray scanners to control imported merchandise in containers, which will make it possible to reduce the export of drugs from Paraguay.
