Paraguay: Drug Czar Steps Down After Deadly Anti-Cannabis Operation
On Monday, Paraguay’s top anti-drug official stepped down, two days after a botched anti-cannabis operation left a three-year-old girl dead at the hands of his troops.
Luis Rojas resigned as head of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (SENAD), under apparent pressure from President Horacio Cartes. The deadly operation took place in the Nueva Italia municipality, where SENAD troops searching for cannabis plantations apparently fired on a van—which proved to be carrying members of the Zanotti Cavazzoni family, owners of a local sugar plantation and mill. The girl’s uncle was also wounded in the attack. The girl was the grand-daughter of Ulrico Zanotti Cavazzoni, local sugar oligarch and land-owner.
Paraguay has seen escalating gunplay in recent months, in an apparent struggle by rival gangs for control of the underground cannabis trade. Last week, a commando-style assassination of a local businessman occurred in the town of Pedro Juan Caballero, on the Brazilian border and a key transfer...
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