Paractito, the town of Chapare where drug traffickers live the “Colombian style”

Paractito is a paradise. It is a community in the tropics of Cochabamba -belongs to the municipality of Villa Tunari- to which very few can enter. Even, police and military are prohibited from entering and when they do they are greeted with bullets. Paractito became an area dominated by drug trafficking, but it is also a town where luxury is seen in the midst of immense vegetation. That’s where the “big shots” of the Chapare live, who are surrounded by foreigners. The town has extravagances that compare it to the red zones of Colombia.

In this community the narcos and shot at a cash. The Vice Minister of Social Defense, Jaime Mamani, admitted that the event happened in that area.

Last week, anti-drug agents entered the town of Paractito. In that area, they found a wooden house from which emanated a characteristic odor of controlled substances. Three people were at the scene, who, upon noticing the police intervention, fled, reported Deputy Minister Mamani.

Police officers found five black bags containing cocaine. The vice minister said that then the accomplices of the drug traffickers closed the entrance road to Paractito. Subsequently, three vehicles arrived at the scene: a white Hilux van, a white minibus and a gold Ipsum car.

Mamani added that 15 people descended violently with sticksstones and with firearms “managing to attack our uniformed officers, attacking their physical integrity, thus managing to recover the seized cocaine.”

That happened in Paractito, which is also known as Paracti. There are several cocalero unions there and it is very close to the municipality of Villa Tunari. Two members of the Felcn told this medium what is happening in this town. One of them said that in that area there are “luxury houses with swimming pools” and that cumbia groups play in those buildings.

“They bring cumbia groups from Mexico. Los Bybys were just there, they played at a private party for a drug trafficker. The population knows well what these people do, but they are well protected. That night -one of March of last year- we entered through the side of that house and there were people with firearms, with riflesThey were their security and they kicked us out,” said one of the anti-drug officers.

little circulation
The other officer also related what happens in that town. The captain said that there are areas where not everyone can circulate. He also reported that there is a kind of security in the same “Colombian style”. “Those people are with their rifles watching who arrives. Unfortunately we can be shot down by these criminals, ”he said.

The same officer then asked. “Did you see those drug series? From Pablo Escobar? It’s like that there. In Paractito there are luxury parties, luxury vehicles, luxury houses and not everyone can enter. The movement of strangers is prohibited. They see you and they can disappear ”, she lamented.

In the Felcn they did not attend to the requests of this medium, but in that police office some troops confirmed that in Paractito the law does not exist. “In the center of town one can enter, there is no problem. It is (a) small town, but further inland is where the drug traffickers are. There are the luxury houses,” said a non-commissioned officer.

In 2017, the anti-drug police found the dismembered body of a young man very close to Paractito. He was a young man who was carrying drugs in his stomach to Chile, but who had problems with the cocaine owners. That’s why they killed him. One of the policemen recalled this fact. “It was cocaine and they wanted the swallower (person who carries drugs in his stomach) force him to swallow more (drug). He refused and said that he was no longer going to do the job. That’s why they killed him. They left all of his body, except the part of his stomach. It’s like a message for those who eat, that if you oppose they will kill you”, he recounted.

René Calla was deputy commander of the Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas (Umopar) in Chapare in the 1990s. The former colonel also referred to Paractito, a town from which he said he has been dragging news of drug trafficking for “years.”

Calla, regarding the drug trafficking situation in Chapare, said that there is “a great escalation” that to date “cannot be controlled.” The former police officer explained that when he operated in the 90s with his troops, I had to walk a long way to find drugsbut now the seizures have multiplied by five.

Before we had to walk and do a lot of intelligence to get 10 to 20 kilograms of drugs, but now you find more than 100 kilograms,” said the former officer.

In the same sense, he indicated that at that time in a year they managed to destroy up to almost 1,000 factories in the Cochabamba tropics, now there should be more, but the data shows the opposite.

Calla questioned that the controls in this region, as well as the effective companies, have decreased instead of increasing. “Umopar Bulo Bulo no longer exists, they burned it in the conflicts of 2019 and in those facilities they are drying coca“, said. On the way from Santa Cruz to Chapare, the only checkpoint is in Locotal, the ex-official pointed out.

Vice Minister Mamani stressed that anti-drug operations will be expanded in the Chapare.