Hitmen and the sale of political merchandise in Paraguay

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By Juan A. Martens Mo­las*

Sicari­ato is jus­tice ad­min­is­tra­tion by the or­ga­nized crime. It is an ag­ile mech­a­nism for con­flict res­o­lu­tion that orig­i­nated in the crim­i­nal mar­ket. There­fore, to un­der­stand the im­pli­ca­tions of a case we must broaden our view of the con­text, the play­ers in dis­pute, the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of se­cu­rity and jus­tice agen­cies and even the re­ac­tions gen­er­ated in the press and so­ci­ety.

On Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, two hooded men chased and fired 34 bul­lets at Ed­er­son Sali­nas Benítez in the park­ing lot of a su­per­mar­ket, killing him on the spot. Al­most all the bul­lets were shot into the vic­tim’s face and head. The mur­der was recorded on video sur­veil­lance cam­eras. Ed­er­son was 33 years old and for over 15 years, like many young peo­ple in his city, he had been work­ing for bor­der busi­ness­men, those whose ac­tiv­i­ties shift be­tween the le­gal and the il­le­gal, with­out arous­ing any in­sti­tu­tional in­ter­est.

He was killed in Asun­ción, where he came to take refuge. In March 2022, some 15 peo­ple with pis­tols and AK-47 ri­fles at­tacked his bunker house in the cen­ter of Pe­dro Juan Ca­ballero (PJC). They left be­hind more than 200 per­cus­sion pods. The mag­ni­tude of the at­tack at­tracted the se­cu­rity forces, (among these, one of his pro­tec­tors) pre­vent­ing the ag­gres­sors from achiev­ing their ob­jec­tive. As they found him with an un­doc­u­mented weapon, they ar­rested him. The then deputy chief of In­ves­ti­ga­tions was evicted from his of­fice be­cause it was to be used as a cell for him, since he could not be in a dun­geon (the usual ar­rest quar­ters). He was soon ac­quit­ted, with­out charge. He moved around in an ar­mored van, with­out a li­cense plate. He drove more than 500 kilo­me­ters be­tween Pe­dro Juan and Asun­ción with­out any­one ques­tion­ing him.

His po­lice record shows that he has no crim­i­nal record or open crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings; how­ever, af­ter his death, a high-rank­ing po­lice chief stated that he was be­ing tar­geted for his links to drug traf­fick­ing and even the Feb­ru­ary 2020 mur­der of Leo Ve­ras, a PJC com­mu­ni­ca­tor. He was also said to be part of the First Cap­i­tal Com­mand (PCC), the re­gion’s largest crim­i­nal en­ter­prise, with a pres­ence and busi­ness in Paraguay for at least 15 years.

So how did he move so calmly around Asun­ción, to the point of go­ing with his girl­friend to a hair­dresser’s? The ex­plana­tory frame­work de­vel­oped by Fed­eral Uni­ver­sity of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) pro­fes­sor Michel Mise can help with un­der­stand­ing. Mise ar­gues that part of the suc­cess of crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions can be at­trib­uted to the buy­ing and sell­ing of po­lit­i­cal mer­chan­dise, that is, priv­i­leged in­for­ma­tion col­lected by mem­bers of se­cu­rity agen­cies in the per­for­mance of their du­ties and placed at the ser­vice of crim­i­nal gangs, ei­ther in ex­change for money, or to put a cer­tain price on their si­lence and/​or in­ac­tion.

In the case at hand, the po­lice have a deep knowl­edge of the mem­bers in­volved and their crim­i­nal dy­nam­ics in every cor­ner of the na­tional ter­ri­tory. They col­lect a large vol­ume of in­for­ma­tion daily that would al­low them to pre­dict and in­ter­cept il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties. How­ever, this knowl­edge is mostly used for per­sonal gain, specif­i­cally to col­lect money and get rich. Part of what is col­lected (from drug deal­ers, smug­glers, and other crim­i­nals) is sent to the near­est boss and the rest is sent to the cap­i­tal. It is a scheme that has been work­ing per­fectly for a long time and any at­tempt not to con­form means an im­me­di­ate trans­fer, as an of­fi­cer ex­plained to me months ago.

This con­cep­tual frame­work may shed light on why Ed­er­son Sali­nas did not even have an ar­rest war­rant, de­spite ap­pear­ing in wire­taps from Op­er­a­tion North, in 2019, when some 20 uni­formed of­fi­cers were ar­rested for co­op­er­at­ing with the then head of the PCC in Pe­dro Juan, Levi Adri­ani Fabri­cio. Prob­a­bly, this is also where his close ties and pro­tec­tion by high-rank­ing po­lice chiefs op­er­ated.

This sale of po­lit­i­cal mer­chan­dise is not ex­clu­sive to the Na­tional Po­lice but rep­re­sents a com­mon prac­tice of SENAD and Pub­lic Min­istry agents, ac­cord­ing to some mem­bers of crim­i­nal gangs, who are al­ready bud­get­ing for the re­spec­tive pur­chases in or­der to avoid risks, such as loss due to seizure or un­ex­pected in­ter­ven­tion.

The mur­der of Ed­er­son and other events linked to drug traf­fick­ing (for ex­am­ple, the mur­ders of M. Schwartz­man and Willian Giménez or the ar­rest of Ed­uardo Apare­cido de Almeida or Pisca) in Asun­ción re­veal the func­tion­al­ity of the cap­i­tal as a refuge and cen­ter of op­er­a­tions for crim­i­nal mar­ket ac­tors, while at the same time show­ing the lo­gis­ti­cal ca­pac­ity of these crim­i­nal groups to carry out at­tacks in more con­trolled and ur­ban spaces.

At this point, it should not be for­got­ten that the mega-loads of co­caine seized in Eu­rope in 2021 were shipped in and around Asun­cion. Clearly, these facts high­light the ex­pan­sion of crime and the fact that it is no longer a lo­cal prob­lem in bor­der ar­eas.

On the other hand, Ed­er­son rubbed shoul­ders with the high­est au­thor­ity of the PCC at the lo­cal level, from Levi to Mino­tauro, un­til he gained trust and, thus, climbed up the struc­ture. How­ever, as he gained power, he broke some ba­sic rules of the or­ga­ni­za­tion, which, above all, seeks to do busi­ness and be fair in the world of crime. In that world, every­thing is reg­u­lated, and some de­vi­a­tions are pun­ish­able by death.

Ed­er­son made de­ci­sions about some peo­ple’s lives, with­out con­sen­sus or au­tho­riza­tion, which at­tracted in­sti­tu­tional pres­ence. He be­came a prob­lem that had to be solved, as he broke the sta­tus quo that al­lows for the smooth run­ning of bor­der busi­ness. This hy­poth­e­sis would be con­firmed by the shots that de­stroyed his head.

how did he move so calmly around Asunción, to the point of going with his girlfriend to a hairdresser’s? The explanatory framework developed by Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) professor Michel Mise can help with understanding. Mise argues that part of the success of criminal organizations can be attributed to the buying and selling of political merchandise, that is, privileged information collected by members of security agencies in the performance of their duties and placed at the service of criminal gangs, either in exchange for money, or to put a certain price on their silence and/or inaction.

The crim­i­nal ca­reer and the mur­der of Ed­er­son Sali­nas con­front us with se­cu­rity and jus­tice in­sti­tu­tions that are func­tional and at the ser­vice of or­ga­nized crime and not the rule of law. They also show a so­ci­ety that, out of fear or con­ve­nience, tol­er­ates the sit­u­a­tion and con­tin­ues to hand over its young peo­ple as dis­pos­able la­bor. In this sense, it is strik­ing that only a sec­tor of the press de­parted from a de­scrip­tive read­ing of the facts and asked un­com­fort­able ques­tions to un­der­stand the in­sti­tu­tional con­text and the con­di­tions that made pos­si­ble the ex­pan­sion of or­ga­nized crime.

Af­ter this event, it is clear to me that to con­front or­ga­nized crime, good speeches and luke­warm mea­sures will not be enough. It will re­quire an in­ter-in­sti­tu­tional rev­o­lu­tion, car­ried out by lead­ers with courage and brav­ery to with­stand pres­sures and even at­tacks, since they will af­fect the busi­ness of many peo­ple with weapons and power, ac­cus­tomed to killing peo­ple to solve their prob­lems.

Im­age De­scrip­tion and Source: Levi Adri­ani Fabri­cio and Ed­er­son Sali­nas in con­ver­sa­tion in late 2018 in Pe­dro Juan Ca­ballero, Paraguay. Au­thor’s file im­age.

* Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of IN­ECIP-Paraguay. PhD from the Uni­ver­sity of Barcelona-Spain (UB). Mas­ter’s in Crim­i­nol­ogy, Crim­i­nal Pol­icy and Se­cu­rity (UB) and Crim­i­nal Guar­an­tees and Pro­ce­dural Law, Na­tional Uni­ver­sity of Pi­lar (UNP-IN­ECIP). Lawyer-UNA. Re­search Pro­fes­sor at UNP and IN­ECIP-Paraguay. Pro­fes­sor of Crim­i­nol­ogy-School of Law UNP and UNI­CAN. Re­searcher Level II PRONII-CONA­CYT.