Criminal networks, drug trafficking and their dynamics in the Brazilian border: description and comparative analysis of two border regions: the triple border Brazil/Paraguay/Argentina and the twin cities Ponta Porã (MS)/Pedro Juan Caballero (PY)

Acknowledging the growing social, political, and strategic importance of border regions for the debate on public security, especially when designing prevention strategies against drug trafficking, this project proposes to map out the criminal networks operating in the border region of Brazil with Paraguay and Argentina. We seek to identify these networks with regard to their connections, their actors, and their established associations to understand how they operate, with particular attention to their independent/autonomous dimensions and the collaborative or articulated nature of this operation, especially in the border region shared by these countries. The analysis hereby proposed will stem from a combination of two methodological approaches: 1. A “social network analysis”, broader in scope and which seeks to identify the central actors within the criminal networks in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, the connections and articulations they establish with other actors, criminal or otherwise, and the types of associations, emphasizing the location of Brazilian prison-based groups within these networks; 2. A micro analysis focused on understanding these criminal networks and their tensions, conflicts, and forms of cooperation as they developed across two specific regions, in which two geographically delimited case studies will be carried out and defined from their importance within the Brazilian criminal dynamics: the Ponta Porã/Pedro Juan Cabellero region and the triple southern border: Foz do Iguaçu, Puerto Iguazu, and Ciudad del Este.