Inside Paraguay's black market
Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, is home to a thriving black market where drugs, pirated DVDs, guns, and crappily-made "Startar" baseball jackets, can be easily purchased for remarkably low prices. The sellers will even help with "shipping." In the new issue of GOOD Magazine, Sacha Feinman visits the markets of Ciudad del Este that generate an estimated 30 percent of the country's GDP. From GOOD:
LinkOne shop in particular, I’m told, is a clearinghouse for drugs. Armed with the proper introduction, in I went. In lieu of a traditional greeting, the owner simply asks me what I’m looking for, and how much of it I’ll need. “And, yes, we have cocaine,” he adds as an afterthought...
He quizzes me, asking where I live in the city, if I have the cash on me, and if I’ll need assistance getting it back home from Ciudad del Este. Satisfied with my answers, he reaches under the counter to produce a narrow tan brick of densely compressed Paraguayan Brown (marijuana), barely softer than a rock. It looks like AstroTurf.
He asks me again how much I’m looking for and I stutter, blurting out that 50 kilos should do it for now. He chuckles. “We usually sell more than that, 200 or so, but we can do 50. One second.”
He leaves the room to make a phone call, and a moment later returns: “It’ll be $20 U.S. a kilo,” he says. “And are you sure you don’t need any help getting that to Argentina?”
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And I thought the real trick to drug dealing was knowing how to get a hold of a supplier.
"It’ll be $20 U.S. a kilo"
OMFG
Arkizzle: My reaction exactly.
So this is how journalist make money. As the poets Clipse once said, "Keys open doors."
Is this where the CIA buys their cocaine?
nah,they got better connections
http://www.madcowprod.com/
I live for 2 years in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and is like any city in the world just that with lower prices in the middle .. live in the neighborhoods of "Itaipu" the largest hydroelectric dam in the world has nothing of what we read in this article .. this world there is also in Paraguay, not only is the drug trade .. talk about those who consume rather than those who sell.. everybody knows where the cocaine is coming out of colombia, washed in paraguay and ending with? as all other products .. is very hypocritical to have only a part of history ..
We in Brazil are probably the biggest consummers of this market. I know many people who visits Paraguay just to buy "muamba" - CDs, electronics, clothes, etc.
@ElGrupoLimon talking abou from where it all comes and from where it all goes wouldn't fit in an article :P
@Eduardo Padoan but this kind of entertainment is not healthy .. because this article is only that, if not actually investigates all .. that, as when, where, because so .. here only shows the social reality half .. and that is not good ..
holy incomplete ellipses Batman!
why is ten bucks a pound remarkable? It s a WEED fer crissakes! If it weren't for he Waronsomedrugs Industry needing all that profit margin to justify the huge DEA payroll, pot would be essentially free since it would be growing in every ditch and backyard.
Interestingly, if seized by a l.e.a., this $1000 worth of "Paraguayan brown" (is that pot or weed–the excerpt is a bit unclear?) would promptly be reported as a seizure with a "street value" of $423,000. That's quick math on my part assuming that it's marijuana in question here. I guessed (very high, as do l.e.a.s) $30 for an 1/8oz. The point is, this should help to elevate an eyebrow when you hear that some l.e.a. seized some X-million dollars worth of something.
is that pot or weed–the excerpt is a bit unclear?
oops - should read something like "is that pot/weed or cocaine..."
"I explain that I’m an Argentine dealer named David (I’m not), and that my business partners in Buenos Aires are looking for a regular supply of cheap marijuana (I have no business partners, and if I did, they wouldn’t be looking for this kind of business), and could he help me?
He quizzes me, asking where I live in the city, if I have the cash on me, and if I’ll need assistance getting it back home from Ciudad del Este. Satisfied with my answers, he reaches under the counter to produce a narrow tan brick of densely compressed Paraguayan Brown, barely softer than a rock. It looks like AstroTurf."
Thanks, Takuan. I didn't notice that little bit of info was in the section I edited out for brevity.
Do you know of any travel companies offering this in some sort of package deal: flight, cocaine pick-up and escort to Argentina?
Upeicharõ ahata paraguaype ajogua opaveve. Ikatupa ajogua riñon? :D
@17
yep: DEA Entrapment Tours Ltd.
Dear Ryan
you're fucking with my head
Dear Ryan
you're fucking with my head
I've been there more than once, and I think it's a fascinating place (ok, I like a little chaos). Of course you can buy some generic ipod for some US$ 10, but you can also find an original MacBook Pro, or a PS3 for very nice prices (at least for us, brazilians - taxes can get very high around here). That's why loads of brazilians go there to buy electronics, or buy stuff from people that go there regularly.
About the drug thing, I don't know where it surprises people (maybe because it's an exotic south-american country?). I've been offered hash in a street in London, and I'm sure I was not the first to experience this.
#22: But that hash wasn't being sold for $20 a kilo. Ok, hash is probably more expensive here, $25/kilo.
Chembovy'a/glad to know, Takuan. :D
hi does anyone know if you can buy gold at under market values there?ie black market jewellery,scrap or buillion? and if not where can i obtain?i am willing to go to any city in the world