Gang makes off with millions in Paraguay
Brazilian crime group is suspected in assault on security company.
SAO PAULO, Brazil — The robbers numbered about 50 and came armed with high-caliber weapons, grenades, dynamite and caltrops, those spiked devices designed to puncture tires.
The Paraguayan government says they escaped by water as well as land, and when their assault on an armored car company was done, they made off with millions of dollars.
Authorities in Paraguay and Brazil are searching for those behind the dramatic assault on the company located in the triple-border region, where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet. The borders in the area are known to be lax, with contraband electronics, drugs and arms flowing easily in and out of the three countries.
Around 12:30 a.m. Monday, the robbers blew up the vaults of Prosegur in the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este, just a few miles from the Amizade International Bridge, which connects it to the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu. The explosives left gaping holes in the side of a building.
On Tuesday, Brazilian police arrested eight people near the border with Paraguay after a shootout with members of a gang suspected of carrying out what is being called the robbery of the century.
Three other gang members were killed in the gunfire exchange, and police recovered six rifles, ammunition, two boats and seven vehicles in their search after the shootout.
Early news reports from Brazil and Paraguay put the haul at $40 million, but on Tuesday afternoon a company representative said it was much less, though still substantial.
“There were $49 million” in the building, Prosegur’s executive director, Juan Cocci, told the radio station Mitre de Buenos Aires. “Today we can say there are approximately $8 million missing. We still don’t know the exact figure, but it has dropped a lot.”
Authorities in Paraguay and Brazil said they suspect the culprits were members of an infamous Brazilian criminal organization called First Capital Command.
The robbers are said to have arrived in pickup trucks and were armed with antiaircraft machine guns and grenades.
Directly after the explosion, the gang members took residents of neighboring homes hostage during a first shootout with Paraguayan police, which lasted two hours and left one officer dead. Three civilians were injured.