On 18 June, Bolivia's Defence Minister Javier Zabaleta confirmed that one of Brazil's leading drug trafficking organisations, the Comando Vermelho (CV), had perpetrated a cross-border assault on a military outpost near Porvenir, Pando department. The armed raid left seven people injured, including two police officers, and saw the attackers escape with an estimated nine AK-47 assault rifles, 11 magazines, and five pistols. The incident followed another suspected CV attack on 13 June in which 30 rifles and 2,000 rounds of ammunition were stolen from a Brazilian police outpost near the Bolivian border in Epitaciolândia.
Significance: These two recent CV attacks are likely to be motivated by the criminals' desire to increase their stocks of heavy weaponry, and not by political aims. Although this suggests a potential new conflict with the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), a rival Brazilian criminal group with a Bolivian presence since 2012, the immediate incentives for an armed confrontation appear limited. It is more likely to indicate that the group instead seeks to follow the PCC in Bolivia by diversifying away from drug trafficking activities and moving into other crimes. This latter group has, for instance, been responsible for several armed robberies in the Santa Cruz department, most notably in 2017 when it attacked a EuroChronos jewellery store, killing five, and stole USD700,000 from a Brinks armoured vehicle, injuring five police officers. A CV-shift towards armed robbery would heighten theft risks in the northern departments of Beni and Prado, especially for jewellery and consumer goods stores in the largest nearby cities of Cobija and Riberalta. Risks to cargo and cash transported through these departments would face similar threats, with cargo drivers and employees likely to get caught up in armed assaults also suffering heightened risk of being killed or injured during robberies.
Risks: Crime; Criminal violence
Sectors or assets affected: Retail, banks; Ground cargo