The government of Paraguay does not want a radar system that could monitor commercial air traffic because it would also track the airplanes used by drug smuggling cartels for cocaine trafficking.

Paraguay is in the "open air": Only 3% of the sky is covered with a half-baked radar
With the television appearance of drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, who is a fugitive,
but is believed to be hiding in national territory, it is evident that the governability of Paraguayan airspace is "in the open air" and in the hands of organized crime.

Do we know or not what transits through Paraguayan airspace? It is one of the questions that arise after the television appearance of Sebastián Marset and the statements of the Uruguayan journalist of the program Santo y Seña, on Channel 4 of Uruguay, who interviewed the drug trafficker.

In relation to this, on Monumental 1080 AM radio, the former head of the National Directorate of Civil Aeronautics (Dinac) Félix Kanazawa explained that there are two types of radars: primary and secondary.

Secondary radar is an active device, meaning that the aircraft needs a signal emitted from the ground to respond.

However, the primary radar emits an electromagnetic signal and bounces off the fuselage of the aircraft that is flying irregularly.


An aircraft is understood to be irregular when it does not have the transponder on. For the secondary radar to work, the pilot needs to manually turn on the device.


Regarding the primary radars, he pointed out that there are civilian and others of military application. The latter have technical specifications that meet certain standards.

Currently, Dinac has a primary radar installed at the Concepción air base and, according to its technical specifications, it is focused on civil aircraft.

Primary radars for military application have another type of band, which are lower frequencies.

Currently, Paraguay does not have primary radars with military specifications.

On the other hand, he stated that in the country there is no real coverage of radars to monitor planes, flights and operations of organized crime.

"In order to optimize the effective use of primary radars with military application, it has to be planned intelligently and with several institutions, in order to know the strip in which these irregular aircraft operate," he explained.

According to the data he had collected, the former head of Dinac said that Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil have their borders covered with primary radars.


The engineer pointed out that any type of legally constituted aircraft has to be declared through a flight plan.

Air Force Radar Half-Worked

The Paraguayan Air Force has two 3D radars that were acquired from an Israeli company in 2011. They have a range of 50 miles (80 kilometers), but are currently not 100% operational.

One of these devices works halfway and only has a range of 20 miles (32 kilometers), Aeronautical Major General Julio Rubén Fullaondo Céspedes, acting commander of the Paraguayan Air Force, told the same station.

With this radar working halfway, the Paraguayan sky only has 3% coverage. Already in 2017 they began to have problems and it is expensive to repair them.


Fullaondo Céspedes said that, to provide good coverage throughout the national territory, nine 3D radars are needed.

Investigating irregular air traffic is complicated
On the other hand, the director of Aeronautics of the Dinac, José Chávez, explained that the institution aims to control Paraguayan traffic, "framed within the regulations and all those who fly within the rules."

Chávez confessed that investigating what is irregular air traffic "is quite complicated," since "those who are illegal are evading all controls."

"The one that flies in a framework of irregularity does not have the equipment turned on so that it can be tracked," he said and reported that Dinac does not have a primary radar to detect aircraft that are flying without communication.

"I think that by next year we would be acquiring a primary radar for our Mariano Roque Alonso station. At this time we do not have the capacity to observe the illegal trafficking that takes place in Paraguayan territory," he emphasized.


Meanwhile, Marset's whereabouts remain a big question mark and Paraguay's name is being mentioned as his possible hiding place, but the National Police "does not handle specific information" in this regard.

The Uruguayan journalist who interviewed him used two helicopters to reach the place where the confessed drug lord was.

Marset is one of the targets of Operation A Ultranza, one of the largest in Paraguay's history, which was launched in February 2021.

He had been arrested in September of that same year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with a false passport. He reappeared in July of this year in Bolivia, where he escaped from the authorities.