Armed gang steals millions:
Dozens of suspected Brazilian gangsters blasted into a secure vault containing millions of dollars in southeastern Paraguay on Monday, leaving a policeman dead in what officials called the “robbery of the century.”
Some 50 gunmen with explosives and militarygrade weaponry left the city of Ciudad del Este looking like a war zone after a two-hour overnight assault on a security firm and police headquarters, authorities and witnesses said.
A joint Paraguayan-Brazilian police operation against the fleeing assailants on the country’s porous border — near the famous Iguazu waterfalls — killed three suspects and resulted in “at least four arrests,” Paraguay’s interior ministry tweeted.
The tweet showed a photograph of a policeman standing over the body of a man in bloodied camouflage clothing. Other pictures on the ministry’s Twitter page showed what were apparently the getaway cars snared by police and a collection of captured ammunition and flak jackets. (AFP)
Haiti PM’s motorcade hits 2:
A motorcade carrying Haiti’s prime minister struck two teenage boys, killing one, as officials drove into the country’s third largest city on Monday to see flood damage left by heavy rains. Serge Daniel, a government delegate who was traveling in Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant’s motorcade, said one of the vehicles accidentally struck two adolescents who darted into the road on a motorbike.
The motorcade continued to its destination as the badly injured teenagers lay on the road, sparking a tire-burning protest by furious locals in the southwest city of Les Cayes.
Les Cayes police spokeswoman Guerline Dimanche said officers rushed the boys to a public hospital, where one was declared dead on arrival.
Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortune said Lafontant, a physician who was approved last month as Haiti’s No. 2 official, agreed to put the survivor on a government helicopter for treatment in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
It was not clear if the motorcade was speeding or if the boys were driving recklessly. (AP)