The Underworld Podcast - The Triple Frontier: Triads, Hezbollah and Narco Heavies

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

When Paraguay extradited French-Corsican heroin kingpin Auguste Ricord to the US in 1972, some thought Paraguay’s narco trafficking days might be numbered. If anything they were just beginning. Within years the tiny nation had welcomed Hong Kong Triads and Lebanese militants — who, combined with considerable homegrown narco and cigarette trafficking, made Paraguay one of the world’s most lawless places, a hive of narco-contraband-terror madness. This nexus was focused not on the country’s sleepy capital city Asunción, but the so-called “Triple Frontier”, where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil met. And thanks to a 2018 conspiracy involving a local trafficker, a money mule and an up-and-coming senator, we know it’s very much alive and kicking today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Delivery fees may apply. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. August 28, 2018, around 2 p.m. Sudha deleste, the second largest city in the Latin American nation of Paraguay. Home to half a million people, the city is perched on a bend of the Paranar River that marks the border between Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil.

The so-called Triple Frontier, best known for its spectacular Iguasu Falls, a tourist hotspot, welcoming over a million people each year. The falls though, they're split between Argentina and Brazil. Almost no tourists comes to Ciudad de Leste and it shows. The city is an awkward tangle of glass-fronted high-rise, half-finished homes and shopping malls, over a dozen shopping malls, many of them brand spanking new and stocked. stuffed full of electronics and luxury goods you'd never find in Assuncione, Paraguay's sleepy capital. But it's not just cheap TVs and Chanel passing through Ciudad deleste.

The city has been a smugglers paradise going all the way back to 1957, when it was founded and named for Paraguay's brutal dictator as Puerto Presidente Strosner. Back then, the city's cash cow was black market cigarettes, billions of them, that propped up Paraguay's tin-pop regime. Then it welcomed Hong Kong triads and even Lebanese militants, turning the place into an unlikely melting pot of organized crime and global Islamist terror. The dictator fell and the city got a modern anodyne name. But crime kept coming, particularly a cocaine industry slipping through the cracks of every country

on the continent. By 2018, it is said that if you spend a day besides the international friendship bridge that connects to Uda deleste with Brazil, you're likely to see drugs and other countries. brand, transport as openly as if they were shirts or kids' toys. Diego Medina, however, he operates a little more cannily than that. On this particular August afternoon, hot and stickier than a spill at a syrup factory, Dina is in Ciudad deleste, putting the final touches on his silver fiat truck before setting out on the 200-mile-plus journey west to Asuncione.

Medina tamps down the Fiat's back seat, then slams its shut. Then he fires up its engine and sets off towards the car. the capital. If Medina makes good time, he'll be there before sunset. But around halfway there, cops stop Medina at a checkpoint. Officers search the Fiat and discover a false bottom in a compartment under the back seat. They rip it open. Inside is almost $200,000 in cash. What's this for? They asked Medina. No answer. The cops haul him off to a nearby police station. There, Medina calls his boss, Regnaldo Cabana Santa Cruz. a notorious drug traffic had better known as El Cucho.

No sooner has Cucho hung up on Medina, then he makes a second call. This time to demand Medina was delivering the cash too. Goatee, muscle-bound, an up-and-comer in the region's underworld, who also happens to be a Paraguayan congressman. The two men speak with an informality that suggests they've known each other for a while. Is everything clean? The congressman asked Cucho, or does it need to be covered up? Not everything was clean, Coucho tells him.

The congressman dispatches two lawyers to the station holding Medina. One of them, a Ciudad deleste public prosecutor, hands the officer in charge $6,000. Moments later, Medina is a free man. He gets back in the fear and continues his journey to Assincion. Drama over? No. In fact, it's only just beginning. Before long, the sort of details of this so-called. Bellido case will come tumbling out into the media. It'll show how, if anything, narco-trafficking in Paraguayan politics has grown even closer than the days

when President Alfredo Strosner hosted heroin kingpins, fugitive Nazis and ousted despots. Medina, Cucho, and their friend in Congress, that'll all catch the polished wood smell of a courthouse over the coming months and years. And the triple frontier? Well, that's getting so out of and the United States will end up sending in the Army. Welcome to the Underworld podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly audiovisual experience where two season reporters pick apart the weird and wonderful world of global organized crime. I am Sean Williams, a British freelance writer, reporter,

based ordinarily out of Buenos Aires, and I'm joined by American filmmaker in the Tri-State area's foremost soprano's expert, Danny Gold. We are to the special relationship, what tacos and telly novellas are to Mexico or what. I know, sex crimes and apology tours are to washed up rappers. What an intro, but also a correction. I don't really make films anymore. And I think in the last episode, we got called out.

You said something about B-52s in World War II. Yeah. Those didn't exist then. I think you meant B-25s. The airplane guys left a lot of comments. They were not happy. I mean, it's not like you called a Humvee or an APC, a tank, right? That's something people get really mad about.

But, yeah, I don't know. not a got how to issue a correction on that one. And then also, I'm not going to let you get away with saying hot and stickier than a spill at a seraphactory. No? Oh, okay. I'm going to keep slipping increasingly bad puns and metaphors and similes into the intro.

So, yeah, we can look out for that in the next week's show. Anyway, yes, sorry, sorry airplane men and went, well, no, it's men, isn't it? Sorry to the airplane men. I got my B-52s and my 25s mixed up. forgive me. Anyway, moving on. I say I'm Norval in Buenos Aires.

Today I'm coming to you from what I assure you agree is a stunning hotel room in Lima, Peru, where I'm tracking down a bunch of stuff. Next week is Bolivia, where I'm putting together a doco-style show for this show to air in a few weeks. So send your regional food recies and story tips our way, the underworld podcast, gmail.com.

Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you're listening to this episode. check out the website underworldpod.com for merch and past shows and sign up to the Patreon if you want to get notes, add free shows, stash hours, and interviews, and soon, I believe, TV and movie watchalongs with Adele, who is way cooler than in. And soon, TV and movie watchalongs with our editor to Dale, who is cooler and more interested than both of us combined. Yeah, that's patreon.com slash in a world podcast or sign up on Spotify, iTunes or YouTube for those bonus episodes and ad free and all that good stuff.

Yeah, I'm meeting a guy who went out to the Amazon tonight and he met a bunch of indigenous guys fighting cartels in the jungle. So that'll be a cool one. That'll be going up soon. Anyway, if you haven't already listened to it, I did a show on Paraguay a couple of weeks back that got into its wild history, the repressive dictatorship of President Alfredo Strosner, which puts Germany to shame, and the country's pension, you say pension, pension, pension, I don't know.

Pension. Yeah, pension. Okay. for smuggled Nazis and narcos, particularly Augusta, a French Corsican mobster who led the importation of so-called French connection heroin, all the way from Southeast Asia and Turkey into the port of Marseille and onwards

through Latin America into the United States. Yeah, I think if there's one thing listeners of the show know you love, it's South American Nazis who also trafficked drugs. If it's two things, it's Chinese guys who set up compounds to send text-meshed scams. If someone actually ever combined the two, Like you would just you would absolutely lose it.

You dedicate your life to just doing episodes on that over and over and over. Yeah, I mean, I do that already. But yeah, I'll do that more if I find Chinese Nazis in the Amazon making scams. That would be great. Anyway, we're going to be doing more on the triple frontier in later episodes, unpicking how it's become by some measures the most lawless place on earth. It is insane. But today I'm going to focus on the Paraguayan part of the equation because it is A, mad, and B,

Still pretty fresh in my memory after traveling there a few weeks ago. But we left that first show back in 1972. That is the year in which August records true identity and location in Paraguay is outed by an American journalist. Paraguay then throws record in jail, but White House pressure on Strosner to extradite the Frenchman fails. Strocer doesn't even give up record when his small nation is dubbed the quote, heroin crossroads of South America by the Washington Post. Nor when, that summer, the U.S. Embassy, and Assoonson cancels its fourth of July party for Paraguayan officials for the first time in over a century.

Oh no, no, what, green bean casserole for the Paraguans? Strozener knows full well how much records drug money is holding back a coup, quite possibly therefore his own murder. Furthermore, recorders enjoyed the protection of regime officials for years, none of them more so than General Andres Rodriguez, Strosner's brother-in-law and one of the country's most powerful men. Rodriguez makes an official $300 per month salary, but he also owns one of Assumcian's most luxurious villas, occupy an entire city block, plus tenants and squash courts, an indoor pool and an outdoor pool. He is, by the way, quite a fat man. He made early bank running currency exchange houses, but in recent years,

had taken a commanding role in Paraguay's marijuana fields, its cocaine trade, and it's booming illegal cigarette trade. More on that last one later. In any case, Rodriguez has a big. appears to be Strosner's point man for record, and he doesn't want to give up on him. I mean, it's his brother-in-law, man. That's family, Sean. It's family. Nothing runs thicker than, no people are thicker than family. I don't know how that phrase goes. Anyway, says one Brazilian official quote, record was the paymaster.

He has all the photo stats of the checks he made out to people for services and protection. If anything happens to him, the friends will make copies of the checks that were sent to foreign bank accounts and many people will be unhappy. Some reports even visit record in his small as Sunsion jail. His role in the French connection record tells them is, quote, a lie, made up by the Americans. Their government is rotten from top to bottom and they have chosen to make me the victim of an absurd plot involving drugs. If they want to stop the drug business, let them put their officials in jail. That is top tier FIFA Peace Prize winning projection there, folks. Anyway, President Nixon at the White House, he is having none of this. And like we were

into last time he finally gets stroked and has to hand over his boy after threatening to pull $5 million in aid to Little Paraguay. Record is flown into New York, demolished in court, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Quickly before we move on, Record serves 10 of those 20 years in a Missouri prison before having his term commuted and returning to Paraguay in 1983, by which time he is riddled with cancer, mute and confined to a wheelchair. Record dies two years later in 1985. The French connection has been fully dismantled by now, Record status as one of the world's most notorious narco-traffickers has been

totally eclipsed by the brutal rise of Pablo Escobar and Medellin. But thanks to the Oscar-winning movie, The French Connection, star in Gene Hackman, record status gets a late boost, and he dies something of a legend, rather than the pretty low-life Nazi pimps scumbagg, he's been from day one.

That's it for record. The rest of this episode is going to be a kind of how-to, if you want to build a lawless state with an estate, how Paraguayas continue to become this mad, free-for-all wild west of Latin America since, how its politics has underwritten an avalanche of organized crime, drugs, scam, terror networks, all of it channeled through the triple frontier and all of it leading up to the Bededal case from the Cold Open. Oh, and that being at least partly to blame for this. President Penna of Paraguay is here, President.

President, thank you very much. young handsome guy. But this is the most prestigious board ever put together. You know, I've seen some great corporate boards. It's always nice to be young and handsome. Doesn't mean we have to like you. I don't like young, handsome men. Women?

I like. Men, I don't have any interest. Just a wholesome budding bromance there, battling cartels and palming out on Paraguayan President Santiago's Peña's dashing good look. You know, honestly, I don't see it. He's like handsome, sure, in like a classical, like, sitcom dad kind of way, but like, fairly plain. I don't know.

Maybe you're into it more than I am, Shane. I just don't, I don't know. It's not for me. I mean, he just looks like any Spanish man, doesn't he? Maybe, I mean, that's it. Maybe that's what it takes. But anyway. Wow.

How do you get? Oh, sorry. They all look the same. They all look the same to you, huh? No, some of them also had dreadlocks and play Manu Chow songs at Rasha-Sharsha-Sha-Zo in Berlin. But anyway, how do we get to the point of this strange friendship? Well, let's go back to the 1970s. It's 1975, in fact.

August record is locked up in the States, and Alfredo Strosner, albeit stung by his acquiescence to the White House, is still very much in charge of his small corrupt state. But, robbed of one of his biggest criminal cash cows, Paraguay is about to get as fruity as any nation in seeking out a new illicit income. On April 5, 1975, long-time Taiwanese leader, Chang Kai Shek, no stranger to the narco scene, himself. You can check out previous episodes, suffers a massive heart attack, and he dies age 87. Chang's son takes control of the island, aka the Republic of China, three years later.

But as happens when an inepo baby takes over his daddy's business, the folks below him, in this case, the gaggle of ruthless, war-weary military bigwigs, jostle for position. One of them is Taiwan's spymaster, General Wang Shen, a wily operator, baldhead, looks a bit like a Chinese Jean-Luc Picard. Oh, God, are we going to go into the intricacies of the late 20th century Taiwanese political intrigue as well? No, fear not. Don't worry. We'll be skipping through this. It might be tough to imagine these days, Danny, but in the mid-70s, Taiwan is a pretty hard-boiled dictatorship kept in check by Wang's secret police. but the general, he makes a huge misstep. In 1983, he travels to the US to have meetings with some of his intelligence counterparts, angling for them to back him when he makes his move on Chang the Younger.

But he gets found out, and as punishment, the regime dispatches him to, yep, you guessed it, little Paraguay. Wang isn't too pleased about this, but he says, I'm still a military man, I obey orders. If you tell me to go, if those are the president's orders, I will obey. bay, and that is a line I tell all of my editors for every story. In November 1983, Wang touches down in Assumcione, what Wang biographer of Wang calls a godforsaken Timbuktu, a back war in other words, sorry Marlian's catching strays there, but as communist China grows in stature and exiles

Taiwan from global diplomacy, Wang makes sure that Paraguay and President Stroessner remain the island's greatest supporters in Latin America. To do so, he focuses on Paraguay's seven thousand or so Chinese immigrants, among the country's only entrepreneurs. As foreigners, they're often prey to the kinds of theft and extortion that are commonplace on Paraguay's rough streets. So Wang gets to work. He turns, quote, flaccid Chinese organizations into full-blown guilds. I think you can go to stores of Chinese stuff to do that as well today. These so-called friendship groups keep the Chinese safe from shakedowns. I just realized I missed your Wang, Flacid, like there was something there we could have, we could have, I'm surprised you actually

didn't capitalize on that. Flacid Wang. I kind of, yeah, I went halfway there, but you really should have gone for it. It's a little low, it's a little like lowest common denominator. But, um, okay, these friendship groups are these, are we talking Tongs, triad, some combination of the two? Yeah, I mean, they don't belong, they don't start out as that. They start out as kind of, um, just programs for keeping together the Chinese business communities. But, you know, these so-called friendship groups, we've seen them in countless shows about the CCP gangsters, just like the one from Palau a few weeks ago. Yeah, you're right. These kind of organizations,

the Tongs, for example, are perfect Trojan horses for triad groups, especially when Wang unveils a plan to settle 5,000 Hong Kong Chinese around Puerto Presidency Strozener, aka Ciudad deleste, working across the borders of the Triple Frontier. Their place of origin, Hong Kong is a cause for concern as drug trafficking, in addition to other illicit activities, has increased significantly in recent years, writes Argentine newspaper La Nassion in 1985. That same year, the New York Times reports that, despite President Stroson's claims to be cleaning up Paraguay, he is still very much back at his bullshit. In particular, the Times reveals that high-ranking Paraguayan officials are directly involved

in cocaine trafficking, especially through the triple frontier. So a little context here. In the 1970s, the Latin American cocaine trade had mostly been steered from Bolivia by coca farmers corralled by Roberto Suarez Gomez, the so-called King of Cocaine, who worked with Narchie's fugitive, Claudeau, to turn Antian Cocales into powder and onto United States. I did a two-part on that back in, I think, December 2024. It's fascinating an ongoing obsession of mine, as everyone now knows. Suarez, by the way, he's the inspiration for the character of Sosa from Scarface. And Sosa, importantly, is the inspiration for Chief Keefe.

Very importantly, yeah. Rufeless guy, Chief Kee. No, wait, I'm talking about Sosa. Chief Keefe is doing great these days. Have you ever, have you seen him? I have not. Crazy Greek billionaire got him out of Chicago for years. I don't think he takes drugs anymore.

Like, before, I think he, like, when he was like 16, besides creating, you know, incredible rap songs, struggled to put a sentence together. And now he's like a very Rudite, like, well-spoken guy. I, he's living his best life and I'm pretty happy for me. The other happened to those other guys like Derek and them, you know. Well, done, but he's, he's doing great. So, you know, good for you, Chief Keefe. I'm glad you made it out.

And a valuable ray of sunshine in this dark, dark episode. Yes, I didn't think I was going to get it from Chief Keefe, but there we go. In 1982, Barbie helps connect Suarez with a young up-and-coming Colombian called Papua Escobar, whose Medellin cartel is on the way to becoming the world's biggest narco story, possibly ever. And by 1985, when Paraguay is reupping on its massive drug trafficking status, the Colombians are by far the biggest force in Latin American organized crime. They've got Colombian left-wing guerrillas, M-19 and the FARC, helping them evade justice, and Escobar is an anarcho-terrorer rampage through his own country, murdering officials and laying siege to the

Palace of Justice in capital C, Bogota. He's also got operatives all over the continent, corrupting officials and committing terrible acts of violence. In February 1985, for example, Brazil launches Operation Eccentric, which aims to flush the Colombians out of its borders. It does this with the American DEA, which states that eccentric will, quote, dismantle the Brazilian arm of the Colombian mafia. Brazilian cops don't bust much product throughout the operation. They do, however, sees more than 20,000 liters of chemicals used to refine the drugs, which they believe are being created in clandestine labs across the Paranar River in Paraguay. That much, this ferry gets a pretty decisive boost. A Brazilian businessman named Hilberto Yanez crashes his

small-engine plane in the Paraguayan jungle en route to Mexico. The plane is carrying 600 kilos of gear. But when soldiers discover the plane and surround it, they don't arrest it Janis. or impound the coat. In fact, they shoot him dead, point blank, and the 600 keys mysteriously disappear. By this point, Ronald Reagan has just been sworn in for his second term as US president. Among his first foreign policy acts is to cut off Alfredo Strosner, whose Timbott regime is an embarrassment on Capitol Hill. More articles appear about Paraguay in US newspapers in 18 months than they had in the previous 30 years, digging into the country's growing reputation as a nest of narcos and violent criminals. The LA Times, for example, writes that Stroshen's

generals have become a, quote, gang of corrupt opportunists, or the new republic calls Paraguay, quote, smugglers' paradise. Eventually, word gets to the producers of 60 Minutes, whose presenter Mike Wallace describes Paraguay as, quote, a third world country ruled to 31 years by the most despised man and the most hated dictator in the world with a ponchant, pension, oh God, why have you said it, Mike, for sycophants and young girls. Oh yeah, Strosna likes them young. I mean, if you've listened to both these Paraguay episodes, I'm assuming you've already guessed as much.

By 1988, Brazilian police named Paraguay as the key source of drugs into its domestic consumption market. Washington, meanwhile, has fully turned on Strosner. It hopes to turn it from what one former ambassador to Assumseon calls, quote, the Mongolia of Latin America. I mean, Mongolia catching strays. and show about Paraguayan drug trafficking. Bit harsh.

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Restrictions apply. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me. want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free.

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It always seems nice. They ride a lot of, they ride those horses, they got those big ass eagles that they, you know, have on their wrist. I would love to go to Mongolia. Yeah, tense drinking camel milk. What's not to like? I think it's pretty cool. fermented camel milk. Mm-mm-mm.

Tasty. D.C. is pretty sure that Strosner's brother-in-law, General Rodriguez, is the head of cocaine trafficking in the country. But he's still the strongest candidate to succeed Strosner, who by now has lost U.S. support to the extent that the National Endowment for Democracy, an agent associated with the CIA, is actively funding anti-Strosner movement. across Paraguay. The U.S. Embassy even tells the aging dictator that he no longer has their backing. Then, on February 2nd, 1989, it finally goes off. A longstanding feud between Strosner and Rodriguez erupts into a bloody coup d'etatr. Rodriguez rolled his armoured division into a Sunsion and tries to arrest Strosna while he's having dinner at his mistress's home. You know, it's always the mistress that brings them down. Usually the mistress's home. I mean, that's how they got Almencho, right?

So like a bunch of Hasbola guys have gotten clapped like that. I mean, there's a lesson there, Sean. It is. Yeah, eight dinner at 5 p.m. Anyway, bodyguards of Strozeners, they fight back. And a 700 strong battle breaks out right in the middle of the sea. Strosner escapes to Asunzion's army headquarters. But naval and artillery units show that too, causing Strosner's boys to ditch their hefe and plead allegiance to Rodriguez.

At 5pm the following day, Strosner surrenders, by which time 31 men have been killed, although other estimates put it as high as 250. If we're going ratio of badness to life in exile, Strosna is going to rank pretty high, hell-power for 35 years, murdered thousands, christened concentration camps and ran Paraguay into the dirt. Yet he jets off on a 707, gets asylum in Brazil, and lives at his days in a lakefront, Le Villa in the capital city, Brasilia, dying at the age of 93 on 2006. That is on a par with Eidarmine. So, the king is gone, long-length the king. Rodriguez opens up Paraguay a little. Abolishing the death penalty, and he tears apart much of Strosen's venal in a circle,

which is not a euphemism, sorry, but the rampage of corruption and drugs continues, not least because Rodriguez is making bank of it, enough that U.S. government officials dubbed him, quote, the cocaine general. I should add at this point that Rodriguez, like Strosner, has the Colorado Party, which has been in power since Strosner came to power in the 1950s, and it's still the party in control of the country today under Santiago Pena, Trump's sexy friend. Given what Strosda did, this is all pretty insane, right? I mean, perhaps not quite as mad as the Khmer Rouge staying on after the genocide, but still crazy. It's like Hitler died and the Nazi party carried on leading Germany was how one local reporter described it to me a few weeks ago. Rodriguez swears early in his

tenure quote, on what is most sacred as a Catholic, as a father. I swear it on my children that he's got nothing to do with drugs. Somewhat contradictory though is the fact that under US pressure, Rodriguez is forced to purge his anti-narcotics squad, themselves implicated in the trade. A month after that, Rodriguez destroys a swath of land producing marijuana for the Brazilian market, Not they had anything to do with it, guys. He swore in his kids' lives. Also, early on, Rodriguez gets approached by the People's Republic of China to ditch Taiwan and open diplomatic relations with Beijing. But old General Wang still hanging out in Assumcant and what is now called Ciudad Deleste, he persuades Rodriguez to keep Paraguay as one of the world's few nations on Taipei's side.

And this helps build the power of those Hong Kong Chinese who came out in the mid-1980s. Rodriguez steps down in 1993 and he dies in 1997. By the year 2000, the CIA believes there are six Chinese triads in the triple frontier and a quote, vying for the 7,000 Chinese businesses in Ciudad deleste from whom they collect up to 30,000 US dollars a month by exporting protection money. Honestly, I'd known about that area for quite a while. I knew the cartels, the PCC and Trangetta, Hezbollah were active there, but did not know the triads were so heavy in it. Like, these guys are everywhere. Deep part of the story of it. Yeah. And like because these guys are doing that flying money Chinese stuff, right, that we went into, what, a year ago,

there's just so much money laundering in the city, like tons of it. Money exchange houses pop up all over Ciudad de Leste, where there's seemingly little demand for them. But of course, there is. And any criminal proceeds, authorities from the US, Brazil or Argentina track back to the city, will they quickly vanish? At this point, Paraguay is such a sinkhole for illicit markets, than even Japan's Yakuza try musseling in. I couldn't find any evidence they'd managed to take any business from the Chinese, but still, it just goes to show how crazy are things are getting. Brazil's nascent PCC, or the First Capital Command, is beginning to use the Triple Frontier

for its cocaine trafficking operations, as are Los Zetas, the Mexican cartel, and the Chaco, remember that, Paraguay's vast, scrubby forest, it's increasingly used to land, planes carrying product, or in some cases to conceal cocaine-producing laboratories. And it's not just foreigners getting in on the act. If you remember from my last show on Paraguay, as far back as the early 1960s, the country had been making massive stacks of cash, smuggling contraband cigarettes on military planes run by Strosan's friends. In fact, at that time, Paraguay had been the world's largest importer of illicit cigarettes. By the early 2000s, this black market is still flying, excuse the pun,

Paraguay now makes cigarettes rather than just ferries them about. Its factories churn out almost 70 billion of the things each year, and that's worth around a billion dollars. Around 90% of those disappear into the illegal market. Most, of course, get across the triple frontier into Brazil and Argentina, but knock off Paraguay and cigarettes have showed up as far away as Ireland. And Paraguay, whose population is around 0.08% of the world's population, is responsible for 10% of the planet's contraband.

tobacco. It can't be right. Can it? Like, what we talked about a few episodes with Dubai, like that seems hard to believe. Maybe a while ago, you would think so big. I think it's still pretty big. It's definitely, definitely toned down for reasons that we're going to get into. But at this point, in the early 2000, it is gigantic. And there are a bunch of, like, really boring academic white papers about it, which I read so that none of you ever have to do. And that is a lot of for that. You should be saluting me. Anyway, in the 1980s, the kingpin of this cigarette trade had undoubtedly been General Rodriguez. But in the years following his death, the baton is passed on to Horacio-Cartez, an Asuncian-born businessman whose rise had become with his purchase of a currency

exchange in the early 1980s, just like the old general. Cartes had then got into aviation, but by the late 1990s, his Grupo-Cartez has over 25 separate businesses, including interests in banking, transport, beverages, agriculture and more. He also owns a soccer club because, of course, and he even, at one point, takes charge of the Paraguayan national team. The US calls Cartez, quote, significantly corrupt, and his tobacco firm, Tabessa is by the turn of the millennium knocking out almost 600 cigarettes per second from a massive factory on the outskirts of, well, yeah, of course it is, Ciudad del Este. Cartes is also a major political player, the key backer of the Colorado Party Post-Strosna,

and so entrenched in the scene that Paraguayans will come to know his corrupt brand of operation as cartismo. There's rarely a Colorado lawmaker who doesn't get the Cartes seal of approval, and his followers even say they're from the, quote, H-C faction of the party, which they claim means honor Colorado, which actually just means Rassio-Cartez, like they're in the Stone Cuts or something. Drugs, cigarettes, triads. Little Ciudad de Lestes by the early 2000s in the Premier League of the world's most lawless places. Rights of Researcher at the Centre for Public Integrity, quote,

The city's downtown is a bustling labyrinth of narrow streets, cluttered with thousands of street stands, money exchange houses and shops, where anything from exotic pets to AK-47s can be obtained with almost equal ease. Late model Mercedes and BMWs sporting polarized wind. windows rush by and scores of motor scooters, some of them transporting entire families, weave through the ubiquitous traffic jams. In the Caillera de los Cigarilleros, as locals of Chris and one of the city streets, boxes of 8, T, Rodeo, Calvette, the smuggler's favorite brands, are stacked high along the sidewalk.

Did you spot the massive journalist cliche in there? Anything from AK-47s could be obtained with almost equal ease. It's like, what is it the thing they say? It's like you can buy a cocaine as easily as you can buy a, I don't know, pack of cigarettes. That's a great one. But to keep on top, you've got to keep innovating, Danny. Move fast and break things, you know?

Oh, I know. And you know I know. Yeah, I move very slowly, but I do break a lot of things. Ciudad de Leste might be what run researcher calls, quote, a giant duty-free store, but it needs more. It needs an X factor. How are you supposed to keep up with the Cinelloas and the shans? States and the Albania's of the world. If you're only a haven for contraband cigarettes, cocaine,

heroin and cheap Chinese electronics, no. Ciadad deleste needs to find his fifth gear. It's jeuner-se-cois. And you know what? In the early 2000s, it finds it, Danny. It finds it good. Can I guess? I'm going to guess a couple things. Uh, wildlife trafficking, Petty Manufacturing. Only fans production, bootleg messy jerseys. I would guarantee there are plenty of messy jerseys.

However, it goes in a slightly different direction. In September 2001, I don't know if you remember there, some guys fly planes into these tall buildings in downtown manor and I to look it up, but apparently it was a pretty big deal. And guess which pokey little out of American corner is becoming a

key player in global Islamist terror? Yes. See you Chad Deleste has it covered. It's ducking and rolling, sprinting for that prize of being the most loyalist place on earth, and by Jove, I think it might just be pulling it off. Now, actually, there shouldn't be anything too surprised about this. Alfredo Strosner has been buddying up to top Nazis going back to the 1950s, Mengelech, and her old friend August record. Around that time, a small wave of Lebanese Muslims had also made their way to the country, followed by further influxes in the 1970s and the 1990s.

The vast majority of these folks have nothing to do with militancy, of course, but Hezbollah, Lebanon's sheer paramilitary group, established themselves within Paraguay, especially Ciudad de Leste, attracted by the city's easy access to guns and drug money, plus money laundering services operated by the Hong Kong Triads. Yeah, Hezbollah, I think in the late 80s, maybe more so in the 90s, really took aim at setting up these sort of international

networks, especially involving like drug smuggling and money laundering, I think most famously in West Africa, right? Yeah, there was that episode we did about Guinea Bissal from a few years back in Hezbollah play a pretty big role there. I think they still do today as well. Major trafficking networks. Anyway, this flying money, the money laundering service is something that the Chinese had already allegedly tried with an Egyptian militant group, I'm not even going to try it to name, sending

guns and ammo mislabeled as medical equipment. and laundering the proceeds through their various shopping malls. But their connection to Hezbollah soon takes center stage. In 1992, a suicide bomber associated with language jihad, a Hezbollah proxy blows up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing four Israelis and 25 Argentinians. Two years later, a car bomb explodes outside Amir, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and it kills 86. Most agree that it, too, was orchestrated by Hezbollah, particularly a great group.

based in the triple frontier. Yeah, I think they actually found in the 2020s that it was financed or planned by Iran with Hezbollah. And famously, the prosecutor who was going to present all this data, all this information, all the evidence on it died. He was also going to present that the Argentinian president at the time. Kirchner was covering up those connections, at least the connections to Iran, died the day he was supposed to present it to the Argentinian. Congress allegedly murdered. I don't think they proved that it was murder, but it sure looks like murder. Yeah, and I don't think they proved that she covered it off, but there's a lot of evidence

that allegedly with those two things, but there's a lot of evidence that points to both those things. Yeah, definitely. I think it was Alberto Nisman, was the prosecutor. And he had a flat in Puerto Madero, which is like the flashes part of Buenos Aires. And I think he was found dead with a bullet wound in the side of his head, but there was no residue on his hand. And there was like a sign of a false entry into a side door to the apartment. So, yeah, he must have broken into his own home, stepped on his gun, laid on the

floor. I don't know how he did it. But yeah, Kishnan was pretty, pretty heavily involved. But pretty much nothing has been solved around that, even to the day. Anyway, the leader of this group, the group that has supposedly orchestrated the whole Amir attack from the Triple Frontier. His name is Assad Ahmed Barakat, a Lebanese Paraguayan, who, shortly after the attacks, is convicted of tax evasion and spends six years in the Paraguayan prison. Honestly, I do not know how you end up in jail for evading tax in Paraguay. But upon his release in 2008, Barakat continues to bolster his so-called Barakat clan, moving between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina in the Triple Frontier,

and laundering an alleged $10 million through one casino on the Brazilian side, Iveguasu Falls. But if you launder your cash quietly through a casino on one side of the border, on the Paraguayan side, you just buy a giant shopping mall, bringing in cheap Chinese goods, laundering the cash through local triad networks, and exchange it for weapons, drugs, you name it, all for the Hezbollah calls. The name of this place is the Galleria Pache. It stits a dubious quarter mile from the Brazilian border, and it has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, not just for its connections for the Barricat clan, but also links to Brazil's cocaine trafficking PCC and Hamas.

Casa Hamza, a store within them all, has even hired Hezbollah militants to, I don't know, service iPhones. Info Bay has a great series on this. Do check it out if you have the time, speak Spanish and don't mind low-quality audio, which you probably don't mind, actually, if you listen to this. In case you're wondering how closely intertwined the Lebanese and the Chinese bar by this point, take two of Hezbollah's leading front businesses in Paraguay.

I garden shisha charcoal and master nanokin Argento with cigarettes. Yeah, you get the message. I didn't even have to do an accent there. Oh, and an interesting side note, that charcoal business is shipping cocaine inside charcoal destined for get this, Israel. Yeah, there's also pretty, I mean, I know people who weren't, there's like heavy cocaine in Beirut too. Like they get it over there.

But then also you have situations where the clans, uh, in, the valley would smuggle hash into israel using i think i mean i don't think so much anymore but they would use like israeli arabs and bedouins and then i'm sure it was uh taken over by like israeli organized crime to sell um fascinating drug drug stuff interwoven in those areas yeah did that come up in the car bomb episode you did a few years back because that was like super interesting if people haven't listened to it i don't think so i don't know if it was like those mafia families involved with dealing hash on the streets, you know, in like Tel Aviv. But I mean, obviously someone was selling it.

So some level of organized crime there. You know, the South, sort of South Lebanese or Israeli Arab or Bedouin sort of middlemen that connected to. Yeah. Yeah. So to close this chapter of the episode before we head back to drug trafficking, I'm going to rattle all the way up to 2018. That year, the Barak clan members attempt their biggest coup yet by bidding to take over a municipal airport in the town of Capitan Bado, remote place almost 300 miles north of Ciudad

Deleste right on the Brazilian border. This will allow Hezbollah to move Bolivian-produced cocaine into Paraguay and onto Brazil and Argentina. And incredibly, or not, I guess, given the avalanche corruption we've gone through today, they're helped in doing this by a ministry of the Paraguayan government, which gives them the land for under $1,000. This, it seems, is a step too far through authorities. In May 2018, Paraguayan cops arrest and extradite to the US, a Hezbollah drug money launderer accused of washing almost a billion dollars. Also rounded up is a Colombian-Lebanese national who had washed cocaine money for the Mendejin cartel and Los Zetas and who was a follow of one of the men accused of plotting the 1994 Amir bombing. In September that year, Assad Barakat himself

is put in cuffs. By this point, he's one of the most wanted men in the United States. So, Sudade de Leste, global criminal champion? It's got to be right up there with Eastern Myanmar. Absolutely crazy level of organized crime. Since 2018, its role as a key transshipment point for cocaine has increased alongside the power of the PCC and other Brazilian gangs. I think we're going to do an episode about the rise of the Brazilian soon. It's one of the biggest stories in Latin America now.

But now, we are up to the story from today's Cold Open. It is late 2018. Diego Medina has been arrested with almost $200,000 in drug money stashed in that hidden compartment in his truck. His hand at El Cucho has a pal in Congress. They've paid the local cops and Medina has been allowed to continue his journey to drop off the money from Ciudad del Este to Ascuncione. But the reprieve won't last long. The calls between Cucho and his political friend soon leaked to the press and the castle Berillo gets underway, drawing the lines between Cucho's drug smuggling operations, officials of the Colorado

Party and, naturally, Horatio Cortez, remember him, who between 2013 and 2018 is president of Paraguay. This gets dense, so I'll make it brief. Cucho had set up shop in Ciudad de Leste, and a province surrounding it with almost 250 miles of remote jungle border with Brazil. This also happens to be where Horatio Cortez makes the vast majority of his cigarettes, and he's also home to the Zakarias clan, a wealthy family. who have been the connecting tissue between the regions

licit and illicit. Is this it a word? I don't know. Between the illicit and illicit industries going all the way back to Strosner's rule. The family patriarch Javier Zacharias is the region's senator, while his wife Sandra McLeod, Latin America is weird, is the mayor of Sudad deleste. Other Zacharias family members are sprinkled through the region in positions of power, all of them closely allied to Rassio-Cartez. These are These are the guys sitting at top Paraguay's part of the Triple Frontier, basically. Bonjour, compadre.

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which the FDA is not approved or verify for safety, affect minister quality, prescription required. See website for full details restrictions and important safety information. Individuals results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monocidal and fanasteride. The clan's power has been linked to the lucrative smuggling business in the region, writes Insight Crime, whose 2022 feature on the Beredo case forms the biggest part of my research here. This has fueled suspicions that the Zacharias family's close ties to Cartes are partly due to the smuggling of cigarettes produced by his company Tabessa.

But that's not all. The Zacharias clan owns a huge stretch of land alongside the banks of that bridge with Brazil, which had originally belonged to the dictator himself. Strosner. That land was initially earmarked for homes for public sector workers, but it's now home to, what else, a shopping mall, plus a lucrative parking lot, apparently. For years, therefore, the Zacharias clan has built immeasurable wealth for their proximity dictators than the black market alongside the Brazilian border. But by 2018, they have a challenger, a muscle-bound, go-teed political upstart named Ulysses Quintana. Quintana, he's a senator in the same border region as a Zacharias clan. He represents the Colorado party too, just like them. But seeing their wealth and

power, Kintana decides he needs to hitch his horse to a different wagon. And in Kucho, he thinks he's founded. See, Kucho is a striver. His hero is Pablo Escobar. He decorates his homes with pictures of Medellin. He rocks up to birthday parties in a Lamborghini, Gezado. Gashado, God, I'm so Argentine now. And just like his Colombian role model, he realizes his way to the top of Paraguay's cocaine tree won't be with plomo, bullets, but with platter, cash. He forms alliances with two Ciudad Deleste prosecutors, one of whom is the mother of Diego Medina, the driver whose arrest would soon bring his operations humbling down. Among those who will later be indicted for connections to Cucho are three assistant prosecutors and 11 police officers. But Cucho's biggest partner is Ulysses

Quintana. He pays a Quintana's senatorship campaign and helps very campaigners around the huge remote region. In return, Kintana offers Kucho protection. Wrestling site crime quote, overtime, this relationship evolved. And what began as a quid pro quo became a business relationship according to prosecutors. It was this business relationship that led Diego Medina to travel from Ciudad de Leste to Assuncione with 190 grand on August 28, 2018. And it was this same trip that brought about the downfall of both men. But 2018, the Colorado, the Colorado, party is split between two factions, H.C., the Cartismo faction, and another led by Mario Abdo Benitez, a half-Lebanese senator whose father was one of Alfredo Strosner's closest allies.

We got into a bunch in the previous episode. They're called the Golden Four. Kintana, he is in Abdo's crew. That year, Abdo takes the presidency from Kartez, which convinces Kintana that he's now untouchable. He passes his sentiment on Cucho, telling him their relationship will allow him to become a kingpin on par with his idol Escobar. Cucho, though, he isn't convinced. I was better off when I wasn't helping anyone, he tells Kintana. Nonetheless, Cucho manages to hook up with President Abdo, and there's even a photo of the two men embracing. Funnily enough, it's Cucho, he denies this photo when it comes out during the case,

claiming, quote, I was never with him. Prosecutors will later show how Cuccio has contributed half a million euros. US dollars to Abdo's presidential campaign. I have more than 3 million photos, Abdo later says. Today I can't say whether it's fake or real. What I can say is that I don't recognize that person. I've taken many photos with many people. I guess side note probably hasn't taken 500 grand of many people, however.

When Matina is picked up with his 190 grand, though, Cucho is the head of a pretty big criminal empire, stretching from Peru to Brazil, shipping hundreds of kilos of cocaine from the Andes, to Ciudad Deleste and onto Brazil and Argentina and Chile and Uruguay. He orders his men to pack Peruvian gear into bricks marked with his preferred Rolex brand and shipped them via land and concealed truck compartments, just like the one Medina had attempted to transport his drug money in.

Medina's arrest, of course, that takes place on August 28, 2018. On September 1st, Medina heads back to Ciudad de Leste and across the Friendship Bridge to Foszou, Brazil, where he hands over cocaine to an associate at a rural neighborhood. On September 2nd, Brazilian authorities arrest a buyer across town. This is the smoking gun Paraguayan cops need to arrest Kucho. On September 6th, they launch Operation Berillo, conducting 22 raids and seizures, including on Kucho's home. Two weeks later, Kintana surrenders too, but the subsequent trial focuses on whether

Berrilo itself was masterminded by Cartez and the Zakarias clan to trample on the power of current President Abdo, Kintana, and their rivals within the Colorado Party. Quote, Kintana had a rival of the Zacharias family and they answer to Horatio Kartez's group, says Kintana's lawyer after his client's arrest. The Attorney General was appointed by Kartez. There's a clear connection between these things and why has this being done without evidence? It's more of a political vendetta than anything else. The lawyer, he then promptly ditches Kintana. In July the following year, audio recordings are leaked. that show Cuchot and his lawyer attempting to bribe Colorado party officials and get them to hire

sympathetic judges. Kintana is released soon after that. And despite being called back to prison, he keeps his seat in Paraguay's Congress throughout the entire thing. President Abdo, meanwhile, ditches Kintana. There will be no impunity whatsoever, he says. Whoever fails, no one is untouchable from the president of the republic on down. That is the instruction I have given them. Kucho responds to this by deciding that actually he has mad, though. That photo was legit and said to his lawyer that the Paraguayan president is a quote, Judas, who is quote, ungrateful. Medina, the driver, he's screwed, of course, and he copses a decade sentence for his role in Kucho's drug empire. Kucho and Kintana's geese would appear to be cooked too, right?

Well, kind of wrong. Because this is Paraguay, TIP, Brue. Kintana is allowed to leave pre-trial detention in 2020, and soon after that, announces he'll run for mayor of Sudad Deleste. Cuchot, too, walks free from pretrial detention in September 2023, and both men have been living freely until this February. That month, both of them are hauled back in after new arrest warrants in connection with the Belolo case, and you think that's funny? Okay, here's some more comedy to round off our Paraguay two-parta. Horacio Cartez, the Colorado's biggest of wig.

He's sanctioned by the US in 2022 for his, quote, involvement in significant corruption. But Cartes becomes Colorado president the following year, backing a handsome young chap named Santiago Peña to become the 52nd president of Paraguay. Yes, that Peña, the guy Trump can't stop making kissy faces out, and the same guy who's now arguably Trump's closest ally in his so-called shield of the Americas, a multilateral group aimed on the surface at least, smashing cartels all. over Latin America. Last month, Peña even agreed to allow US military and intelligence personnel to operate on Paraguay and soil under diplomatic community. How's that for full circle?

Oh, and before I forget, the Galerie Apache, the shopping mall that's also the home of Hezbollah drugs and weapon smuggling, still open. If any listeners are heading to the Triple Frontier soon, do us a favor, buy yourself a black market Chinese TV there, celebrate the sale with a Horatio Carter's cigarette and some illegal whiskey, maybe even a knock-off cigar, buy some of Coucho, chose cocaine, grab yourself a degree at one of the many fate universities popping up across Paraguay, indulging some traffic sex work, maybe top it all off by investing in some of the black market logging that has made the Paraguayan Chaco the most deforested place on earth. You see how much I had to leave out of this episode?

I think listeners should probably skip some of Sean's suggestions, but some of the others sound nice, except I'm sure those vacation darts are going to taste like you're smoking fiberglass particles. But what's that about fake universities popping up across Paraguay? Yeah, this is a new thing where you can come into Paraguay and sort of enroll in a fake degree, get a fake diploma from some guy basically in a shed. And the latest thing is that a bunch of like crypto scammers are also rocking up. Did I mention this last week that when I went to a Sunsion in the hotel, when I looked at the list of companies in the building I was staying at,

I actually recognized like two or three of them as crypto scams that I've looked up online. So yeah, it's not getting better. I had no idea Paraguay was this wild, like still this wild. Yeah, it's insane, man. What a country. Hope you're having, hope you had fun there. You're going back anytime soon? Yes, I think I am to do a story about the 5,000 people who have disappeared since

2023 and no one knows who they are where they've gone or what's happened to them. Like, they have just disappeared. So yeah, it is. Go on HBO that got decent in the second season and then kind of, uh, yeah, never saw it. Is it good? You know, I know people who absolutely loved it. I thought it got good. Then, you know, I think it's worth watching.

I forget what it's called. That's a great TV. Yeah, it was good. It was good. It's worth, it's worth taking a look. A show that we don't know its name. It's all right. Maybe what you.

The forgotten, the unforgettable. I don't know, dude. You know, my brain's got holes in it. Yeah, my brain is mince. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. That's the end. I think it's enough from us.

We covered it all. Allegedly. Done. All this. Allegedly. Allegedly. All right. Take care, guys.

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