Argentina extradites South America’s biggest arms trafficker to Brazil
Diego Hernán Dirisio, an Argentine national, is accused of being the chief arms trafficker for Brazil’s largest drug-trafficking organisation. Argentina’s Security Minister, Alejandra Monteoliva, confirmed his extradition to Brazil to stand trial. According to the minister, Dirisio had attempted to evade Brazilian justice and hide in Argentina before he was located and arrested in the province of Córdoba.
He will now appear before Brazilian courts as the alleged head of an organisation that sold weapons to the First Capital Command (PCC), Brazil’s largest and most dangerous transnational criminal group, which wields considerable influence and is involved in drug and arms trafficking across South America. According to a report published by Argentina’s Ministry of Security, Dirisio also trafficked arms to Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, the region’s oldest criminal organisation and one of Brazil’s most powerful. Created several decades ago inside a Brazilian prison, it is primarily involved in drug trafficking, arms trafficking and territorial control.
Dirisio, who was arrested in Córdoba in February 2024, is under investigation by the Brazilian authorities for international arms trafficking, money laundering and membership of a criminal organisation. Following his arrest, the case passed through the different judicial stages of the extradition process, which was handled by a federal court in Córdoba. Once these steps had been completed, the Argentine Federal Police took charge of the transfer, custody and international handover operation. Dirisio was handed over this week to a Brazilian police delegation responsible for taking him to Brazil, where he will face the charges against him.
“Caught and extradited,” Argentina’s Security Minister Says
Dirisio’s arrest in 2024 followed an investigation by the Argentine Federal Police’s Directorate-General for International Police Cooperation. It involved information-sharing with Interpol’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in Brasília and operational assistance from the Argentine Federal Police’s Federal Operational Unit Division (DUOF), based in the province of Córdoba.
Following the extradition of the man described as the chief arms trafficker for Brazil’s largest drug-trafficking organisation, Monteoliva celebrated the completion of the process on X: “Caught and extradited (…). We found him, arrested him and today removed him from our country. Bye. He’s gone.”
According to the Brazilian investigation, Dirisio “headed, together with his partner Julieta Nardi, a criminal scheme dedicated to international arms trafficking”. The Argentine businessman served as president of a company involved in importing and selling weapons, while Nardi was its vice-president.
Payments routed through informal money changers
Paraguay’s Public Prosecutor’s Office explained on its official news portal: “From its early days in 2012, the company imported around 25,000 weapons from Croatia, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. The weapons entered Paraguay legally and were subsequently diverted illegally to Brazil. Some of them were destined for criminal organisations such as the PCC and Comando Vermelho. Before the weapons were moved into Brazilian territory, their serial numbers were removed in Ciudad del Este to prevent them from being traced.”
The latest report from Argentina’s Ministry of Security also states that the criminal organisation allegedly headed by Dirisio used a specialised financial structure designed to make the money trail harder to follow and avoid detection.
The Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín reported in an article titled “‘Lord of the Arms’ extradited to Brazil” that “payments were channelled through informal money changers operating between Paraguay and the United States and were subsequently diverted to Europe to pay for the arms shipments”.