Drug trafficking, corruption and VIP cells: what lies behind the hit man attack in which the daughter of a Paraguayan governor was murdered

By: MRT Desk

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Narcotráfico, corrupción y celdas VIP: qué hay detrás del ataque sicario en el que asesinaron a la hija de un gobernador paraguayo

Last Saturday, four people were riddled with bullets inside a truck when leaving a party, in a hitman attack that occurred in the Paraguayan department of Amambay, in the northeast of the country. In that attack, supposedly directed at a narco leader, he died Haylee Carolina Acevedo, 21-year-old daughter of Ronaldo Acevedo, local governor.

At the time of the shooting, Haylee – she received six – was next to Osmar Vicente ‘Bebeto’ Álvarez (29), alleged member of the First Command of the Capital (PCC), the largest criminal organization in Brazil, which handles the illegal drug trade through Paraguay.

Together with the governor’s young daughter, two 19 and 22-year-old Brazilians who were in the back seat of the vehicle, companions of the Faculty of Medicine of the Central University of Paraguay (UCP), in the border town of Pedro Juan Caballero.

This Wednesday, a preliminary report from the Criminalistics Department of the National Police determined that some of the more than one hundred bullets that were fired in the quadruple crime have the registration of the Directorate of War Material (Dimabel), a state entity that administers weapons and ammunition from both the Police and the Paraguayan Armed Forces.

For this reason, Ronald Acevedo, the highest authority in Amambay, denounced that the country’s security forces would be “accomplices of organized crime”.

“The murderous bullets of all the crimes that are happening in Amambay are from the Dimabel”, Held the governor in an interview with Radio Monumental. And he affirmed that the Paraguayan State itself “is sending bullets and weapons to kill the people” of that department.

VIP cell

On Tuesday, after several house searches, eight people, some of them Brazilian nationals, were arrested for their alleged participation in Saturday’s attack on Pedro Juan Caballero.

On the other hand, in the last hours the National Police carried out a procedure in the Pedro Juan Caballero prison, more precisely in the cell of Faustino Ramón Aguayo Cabañas (44), an alleged leader of the Comando Vermelho, a fearsome Brazilian criminal organization facing the PCC .

This prisoner, pointed out as a possible mastermind behind the shooting attack against ‘Bebeto’ and his companions, lives in a VIP cell, with a ‘smart’ TV, air conditioning, three cell phones, furniture and even a pool table.

What’s more, he has the company of who would be his partner, Keldryn Mirna Romero Lesme, 22 years old and daughter of the ex-mayor by Pedro Juan Caballero Óscar Romero when we have the information. Romero is currently head of Health and Hygiene of the municipality.

Previously, Keldryn Romero was married to a former agent of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (Senad), Carlos Gustavo Rodríguez (29), who was killed in a hitman attack in December last year, according to the newspaper. The nation.

“There is nothing against the Acevedo family”

Jose Carlos Acevedo, brother of the governor, is mayor of Pedro Juan Caballero for 15 years. He won the municipal elections last Sunday, a day after the quadruple crime, and will assume his fourth term on November 9.

In dialogue with MRT, Haylee’s uncle denied that his niece had a romantic relationship with ‘Bebeto’ Álvarez, as stated by various local media, and although he acknowledged that the young woman was studying medicine, she affirmed that she was doing it “in another faculty” different from that of the UCP, investigated for alleged links with drug trafficking.

“The Prosecutor’s Office is making great progress, it is being investigated. The material authors are already known, and little by little more will be known about the moral authors,” said the municipal chief. And he continued: “It is about a criminal group that wanted to kill ‘Bebeto’, that was his goal. There was nothing against the Acevedo family. My niece and her friends had gone to a party, but these people always infiltrate. The young women did not know that this man was marked to die, they were in the wrong place, with the wrong person. “

“Security orphans”

José Acevedo also pointed out that in the city he administers there are “security orphans” and remarked that on Tuesday two policemen were murdered in Amambay. For this reason, he pointed out that the violence that runs through the commune is due to the fact that “there is a lot of corruption in the national government.”

The Acevedos belong to the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), an opponent of the traditional Colorado Party, the same as President Mario Abdo Benítez.

“This issue has to be clarified,” he said. “This is a small city and we all know each other. There are two or three criminal groups, but they are in their world of crime. The problem is that here if you go to a bar and they are there. you can get shot no matter how innocent you are. People are scared. ”

Last March, an anti-narcotics operation by the Paraguayan authorities ended with the arrest of a former leader of the PCC, Weslley Neres Dos Santos, alias ‘Bebeção’, in a Pedro Juan Caballero car wash that, according to local media, was owned by Osmar Vicente ‘Bebeto’ Álvarez, the man killed on Saturday.

‘Bebeçao’ was arrested along with five compatriots and eight Paraguayans. They all wore ID cards accrediting them as first-year medical students at the Central University of Paraguay (UCP). Since then, the Public Ministry of Paraguay has evidence that could indicate some kind of connection between the university and these criminal groups, mainly in the crime of money laundering.

Emmanuel Gentile

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