Paraguayan prosecutor shot dead on beach during honeymoon

Killers arrived by Jet Ski to carry out slaying of prosecutor, known for cases involving drug traffickers and crime figures.

Marcelo Pecci has been killed on a Colombian Caribbean island. Picture: AFP

A prosecutor from Paraguay who was on his honeymoon in Colombia was assassinated on Tuesday when gunmen arrived by jet ski on a private beach where he was relaxing and shot him dead.

Marcelo Pecci had led drug and money-laundering cases in Paraguay. He was the No.2 person in a unit that targeted cocaine traffickers and other organised crime figures.

Mr Pecci’s wife, Claudia Aguilera, a Paraguayan television journalist, had earlier in the day posted a photo on Instagram of the couple embracing on the beach behind a pair of baby shoes, leaving followers congratulating them on the pregnancy. “The best gift of the wedding is … life approaching you with the most beautiful testimony of love,” Ms Aguilera had written in a post.

The couple had been holidaying on Baru peninsula, near the city of Cartagena, when the killing took place.

“It’s very clear. It’s a reaction from organised crime,” said Paraguay’s Vice-President Hugo Velazquez. “My government has landed many blows against organised crime, and this is an action by the mafia to instil fear in our ­institutions,” he said.

Colombia’s chief of police, Jorge Vargas said the government was deploying police and prosecutors to try to solve the case jointly with investigative teams from the US and Paraguay. “Those responsible will be brought to justice,” General Vargas said, announcing a $US500,000 award for information leading to the capture of Mr Pecci’s killers. General Vargas said Mr Pecci had been heavily guarded in Paraguay, but Colombia’s government didn’t know that he was there on holiday.

“The cowardly assassination of the prosecutor Marcelo Pecci in Colombia saddens all of the Paraguayan nation,” Paraguay’s President, Mario Abdo Benitez, said on his Twitter account. “We condemn in the most energetic terms this tragic event and redouble our commitment in the fight against organised crime.”

Mr Pecci had worked on the country’s largest operation against the laundering of drug money, in February seizing luxury vehicles, airplanes and cattle an international crime ring had allegedly bought with hundreds of millions in narcotics profits.

On April 30, Mr Pecci and Ms Aguilera had celebrated their wedding at a church in Asuncion.

In a post on Monday, they faced the camera smiling with the sun setting over the water behind them. “The last sunset in Baru, but we will have millions more together,” her post read.

The Wall Street Journal