Police shootout during a drug raid kills Paraguayan lawmaker, exposing the country’s challenges

Associated Press

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — A pre-dawn police raid targeting the family home of a Paraguayan lawmaker in a notorious drug smuggling haven turned into a chaotic shootout that left the lawmaker dead and the nation on edge. Monday’s killing of Eulalio “Lalo” Gomes, a 67-year-old rancher and lawmaker in Paraguay’s ruling Colorado party, also served as a grim reminder of the web of collusion between politicians’ families and organized crime in Paraguay, experts said. Security forces with search warrants arrived at the homes of Gomes and his son to look for evidence in what authorities described as a wide-scale investigation into drug smuggling and money laundering in local real estate.