Paraguay believes fugitive ex-Mexican state security chief wanted to start a criminal cell

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Authorities in Paraguay said Monday they believe a former state security chief from Mexico arrested there over the weekend was planning to establish a criminal network in the South American nation.

Paraguay’s National Antidrug Secretary Jalil Rachid said Hernán Bermúdez had fled from Mexico to Panama then Brazil and from there entered Paraguay illegally. He was hiding out and authorities believe was in contact with Mexico’s powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Rachid said.

Authorities apparently found Bermúdez after he used a credit card. “We found him through certain financial transactions that he made here in Paraguay,” Rachid said.

Paraguay President Santiago Peña posted a video to X that showed heavily armed police in camouflage battering down the door to a luxurious home and holding Bermúdez face down on the floor at gunpoint. It was early Saturday there and late Friday night in Mexico.

Bermúdez’s nephew was arrested in Paraguay a couple months earlier. Bermúdez’s wife had also entered the country illegally, but legalized her status Aug. 27, Rachid said.

Bermúdez is sought in Mexico for allegedly running a local criminal organization called “La Barredora” or “The Sweeper,” in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco while he was the state’s top security official. Mexican authorities say Bermúdez had been under investigation since last year and that a warrant for his arrest was issued in February.

He is facing charges in Mexico of criminal association, extortion and kidnapping. Interpol issued an alert for his arrest in July.

Rachid said that Bermúdez accepted extradition, but not the abbreviated form, and would remain jailed while that process plays out.

The case has shaken the highest levels of government in Mexico, because Bermúdez was the security chief of then-Tabasco Gov. Adán Augusto López, a close ally and interior secretary of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

López even competed for the governing party’s presidential nomination against current President Claudia Sheinbaum. He’s currently a senator for the party and has denied having any indication or suspicion of what Bermúdez was up to. Bermúdez resigned as Tabasco security chief in January amid surging violence tied to drug trafficking in the state.