As the seemingly endless legal case of one alleged key lieutenant drags on, we investigate the gang’s operations and investments in the poorly policed border area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.
Key Findings
- Julio César Belmonte do Amaral is accused of running the Paraguay operations of the Riviera Maya gang, a group of skimmers that are thought to have stolen more than $1 billion from tourists in Latin America.
- He has been under house arrest in Paraguay for five years in the border town where he is accused of operating, as his trial grinds along slowly.
- In Brazil, it is alleged, Belmonte do Amaral family members and other Riviera Maya gang proxies bought up properties worth millions using money gleaned from ATM skimming and other scams.
- The properties are believed to be the hidden assets of Florian Tudor, the head of the Riviera Maya gang, who is currently in jail in Mexico.
The trial of an alleged member of a notorious gang thought to have stolen more than a billion dollars from unsuspecting tourists across Latin America plodded along in virtual obscurity in…
