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A SOUTH AMERICAN WATERWAY BECOMES A COCAINE SUPERHIGHWAY — TO EUROPE

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A view of the Paraguay River in Asunción, Paraguay. (TWP)
By Samantha Schmidt
, 
Jon Gerberg
, 
Júlia Ledur
and 
Sebastián López Brach
December 28, 2024
8 min

It was envisioned to be the Mississippi River of South America.

The Paraguay-Paraná waterway runs about 2,100 miles, connects at least 150 ports
in five countries and serves as the most important commercial river route on the
continent. In 1992, the five countries — Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina
and Uruguay — agreed to establish the two natural rivers, which meet at the
Paraguay-Argentina border, as a transit route for goods, dredging them to allow
commercial traffic. Every year, thousands of container ships, barges and other
vessels use the waterway’s brown, bustling waters to carry millions of tons of
cargo south to Argentina and from there across the Atlantic.

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But this crucial artery has a new function. It has become a primary route for
shipping record amounts of cocaine to Europe.

The explosion in the global container shipping business has allowed drug
traffickers to take advantage of a waterway that just years ago would have
seemed illogical — heading south, instead of north, from airstrips in Bolivia to
ports in Paraguay to Argentina’s Río de la Plata estuary.

Map showing cocaine seizures along the Parana and Paraguay rivers since 2018

Cocaine seizures along the Paraguay-Paraná waterway since 2018

Amount seized

in kilograms

5,000 kg

100

2,000

Detail

PARAGUAY

17 tons in

7 seizures

in Asunción

Asunción

Corrientes

BRAZIL

Santa Fe

URUGUAY

Rosario

25 tons in

14 seizures

in Montevideo

Buenos Aires

Montevideo

ARGENTINA

200 MILES

Cocaine seizures along the Paraguay-Paraná waterway since 2018

Amount seized

in kilograms

5,000 kg

100

2,000

PARAGUAY

17 tons in

7 seizures

in Asunción

Asunción

Corrientes

BRAZIL

Santa Fe

URUGUAY

Rosario

25 tons in

14 seizures

in Montevideo

Buenos Aires

Montevideo

ARGENTINA

200 MILES

Detail

Cocaine seizures along the Paraguay-Paraná waterway since 2018

Amount seized

in kilograms

5,000 kg

100

2,000

17 tons in

7 seizures

in Asunción

Asunción

PARAGUAY

Corrientes

BRAZIL

Santa Fe

URUGUAY

Rosario

25 tons in

14 seizures

in Montevideo

Buenos Aires

Montevideo

ARGENTINA

Detail

200 MILES

Cocaine seizures along the Paraguay-Paraná waterway since 2018

17 tons in

7 seizures

in Asunción

Asunción

PARAGUAY

Corrientes

BRAZIL

Santa Fe

URUGUAY

Amount seized

in kilograms

Rosario

25 tons in

14 seizures

in Montevideo

100

2,000

Buenos Aires

Montevideo

ARGENTINA

5,000

kg

Detail

200 MILES

It now feeds Europe’s and the world’s growing appetite for cocaine. Since the
pandemic, some of the largest drug busts in Europe have arrived on containers
that first traveled down this river. Cocaine seizures linked to the
Paraguay-Paraná system shot up fivefold between 2010 and 2021, according to the
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

To take one example: Last year, after departing Asunción, a ship with more than
12 tons of cocaine slipped undetected down the Paraguay River. One of its
containers, carrying black sesame seeds to conceal the drugs, left the
Paraguayan capital in May 2023 and traveled south to Uruguay, where it was
loaded onto a different ship to Europe.

The drugs were found in the port of Hamburg in early July. It was the largest
seizure outside South America in all of 2023.


Paraguay’s antidrug agency conducts an operation to inspect a suspicious
shipment of chia seeds destined for Poland.

Nine days before the container of sesame seeds was loaded in the port in
Asunción, Paraguayan officials had thrown a parade to celebrate the arrival of
five new scanners, four of them donated by Taiwan and made in the United States.
“With this powerful fleet of high-tech equipment,” the country’s customs
officials said in a post. “Paraguay is no longer a river transit country for
organized crime.”

The massive seizure in Hamburg hit the Paraguayan government like “a bucket of
cold water,” one government official said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case. “It was a huge
embarrassment.”

High-end technology, officials realized, was not a panacea.

“It’s the eternal game of cat and mouse,” said Nicolás Benza, head of UNODC’s
container program for the Southern Cone. “They have unlimited resources, while
our resources are limited.”


A NEW COCAINE TRANSIT HUB


Locator showing the course of the Paraná River

PARAGUAY

BRAZIL

ARGENTINA

URUGUAY

For generations, drug smugglers focused their business on the American consumer,
trafficking cocaine from Colombia to Central America and the United States. The
Brazilian port of Santos often served as an alternative departure point from
South America. But today, as the cocaine industry has boomed and as security
officials have cracked down on traditionally vulnerable ports, criminal groups
have carved out new routes and new markets.

Paraguay became an appealing transit point. It’s one of the world’s largest
exporters of soybeans, beef and organic sugar. A landlocked country of less than
7 million people, it now boasts the third-largest barge fleet in the world,
behind only the United States and China.

1 / 4

Just this year, about 78,000 containers have left Paraguayan ports on their way
south to Argentina or Uruguay and across the Atlantic, according to customs
figures.

But the country’s law enforcement was not built to combat transnational
organized crime. Paraguay, unlike its neighbors, has virtually no air radars.
This makes it easy for traffickers in Bolivia to fly drugs — cocaine produced in
either Colombia, Peru or Bolivia — onto illegal airstrips in the northern part
of Paraguay, one of the most sparsely inhabited areas on the continent.

From there, the drugs are taken by truck to warehouses, where they are concealed
in containers bound for the river.

“The evolution of organized crime has been faster than the evolution of the
security forces,” said Oscar Chamorro, head of Paraguay’s coast guard.

Every container that leaves a Paraguay port is now required to pass through a
scanner. But drug traffickers are increasingly finding their way around the
technology, investigators said, mixing cocaine in liquids, powders and other
materials to disguise the substance. In June, Paraguayan authorities found more
than four tons of cocaine stashed inside bags of sugar in a container in
Asunción, bound for Antwerp, Belgium. It had passed through a scanner
undetected.

Charts showing cocaine seized in Paraguay by destination continents in kilograms

Cocaine seized in Paraguay

by destination in kilograms

400

1,500

4,000 kg

Europe

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

South America

Africa

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

Asia

Oceania

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

North America

Cocaine seized in Paraguay

by destination in kilograms

400

1,500

4,000 kg

Europe

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

South America

Africa

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

Asia

Oceania

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

North America

Cocaine seized in Paraguay by destination in kilograms

400

1,500

4,000 kg

Europe

South America

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

Africa

Asia

Oceania

North America

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

Cocaine seized in Paraguay by destination in kilograms

400

1,500

4,000 kg

Europe

South America

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

Africa

Asia

Oceania

North America

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

2013

2016

2019

2022

2024

“We have our doors wide open,” said Deny Yoon Pak, the prosecutor overseeing the
sesame case. “How much cargo has been shipped and we had no idea?”

Earlier this month, Paraguay’s antidrug agency announced it would be halting
cooperation with the United States, jeopardizing some of the most important
investigations into cocaine smuggling in the country. One of those cases
involves the search for Sebastián Marset, the fugitive drug kingpin who hid as a
professional soccer player and is believed to control much of the trafficking
down the Paraguay river. Some former Paraguayan officials argued the move was an
attempt to protect top Paraguayan politicians with ties to drug trafficking.

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Following a story in The Washington Post that reported on the planned end to
cooperation, the Paraguayan government reversed its decision, saying it plans to
strengthen collaboration with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.


A SHIP DEPARTS AFTER A FINAL SEARCH


Locator map highlighting Asunción and the Parana River

Asunción

PARAGUAY

Night fell over the port just south of Asunción as a crane lifted one container
after another, slowly lowering each one onto the Josamo ship as it prepared to
depart.

“Not yet, not yet!” shouted one of the crew members, wagging his finger and
waving for the crane operator to keep going, then stop, before the container
landed squarely in a spot below, with a loud bang.


The Josamo container ship, helmed by Captain Néstor Riquelme, in video, makes
its way down the Paraguay River.

In just a few hours, the captain and crew of the Josamo would begin their
journey south to Uruguay, carrying containers that would be reloaded onto larger
vessels heading to Europe and around the world.

The crew had never discovered any cocaine on board. Still, the captain, as he
always does, instructed one of his crew members, this time Hector Medina, 37, to
do a final round of checks throughout the ship. Carrying a flashlight, Medina
crawled through dark tunnels and peered into cracks between containers,
searching for hints of contraband. (The owner of the ship allowed Post
journalists to travel partway down the waterway on the Josamo.)


Hector Medina checks the Josamo for contraband after it was loaded with
containers before heading out on the Paraguay River for Uruguay.

Hours later, as dawn approached, the captain announced that they would be
setting sail.

“Informing … departure maneuver,” said the captain, Néstor Riquelme, 37.
“Destination Montevideo”

The Josamo left with 292 containers and 12 crew members.

The floor vibrated with the humming of the motor as he turned the ship away from
the shore and began heading downstream.


A GATEWAY TO THE ATLANTIC


Locator map highlighting Rosario

Rosario

ARGENTINA

The narrow river was lined by marshes and farmland, sprinkled with occasional
horses and cows. There were few lights. The following day, one river flowed into
another — the Paraguay becoming the Paraná — and the Josamo reached Argentina.

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The ship would pass by the industrial city of Rosario, the hometown of soccer
great Lionel Messi and the birthplace of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. The
third-largest city in Argentina, it also ranks among the top agricultural ports
in the world.

1 / 5

The river is deep enough in Rosario for seagoing ships. Cargo traveling from
Paraguay must transship here, or in other ports farther south, before reaching
the ocean.

It has become a hub for moving cocaine to places as far away as Australia.

In August 2022, authorities seized more than 1.5 tons of cocaine in a warehouse
in Rosario. The packages, which were found inside bags of corn pellets, were
branded with the Louis Vuitton logo and earmarked for Spain, investigators said.

The warehouse — a nondescript garage — is located in one of the city’s most
dangerous neighborhoods, where local gangs battle for control and have helped
turn Rosario into Argentina’s most violent city.

The government of Javier Milei, a radical libertarian and ally of
President-elect Donald Trump, has directed a crackdown on the gang control of
Rosario’s streets and prisons.

His government has deployed resources to the area, including an Israeli-made
combat vessel to patrol for drug traffickers operating in the waters outside the
city.

Farther downstream is Buenos Aires, the Río de la Plata estuary and the open
ocean. After passing through the channel, the ships turn northeast — to
Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Antwerp and Hamburg.

ABOUT THIS STORY

Photography by Sebastián López Brach for The Washington Post. Videos by Jon
Gerberg. Graphics by Júlia Ledur. Editing by Jennifer Samuel, Jon Gerberg, Reem
Akkad, Peter Finn, Joseph Moore and Adrián Blanco Ramos. Design and development
by Yutao Chen. Copy editing by Frances Moody. Arístides Ortiz Duarte in
Asunción, Paraguay, contributed to this report.

Sources: Cocaine seizures data is from UNODC and Paraguay’s National Antidrug
Secretariat. River data is from HydroSHEDS.

184 Comments
Samantha SchmidtSamantha Schmidt is The Washington Post's Bogotá bureau chief,
covering all of Spanish-speaking South America. @schmidtsam7
Follow
Jon GerbergJon Gerberg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior video journalist. He
joined The Post in 2017 and has worked internationally covering conflicts and
investigative stories for the New York Times, Associated Press, "PBS NewsHour"
and others.@jongerberg
Follow
Júlia LedurJúlia Ledur is a graphics reporter covering foreign news at The
Washington Post. Before joining The Post in 2021, she worked as a graphics
editor at the COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic. Previously, she was on the
graphics team at Reuters, covering Latin American politics, the environment and
social issues with data and visuals. @juledurg
Follow



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