Seven tonnes of marijuana found in a tar tanker at the Guaíra border crossing
Federal Police in Guaíra seized 7.000129 tonnes of pressed marijuana from a tanker on the Ponte Ayrton Senna border bridge on 18 June 2004 and arrested driver Tadeu Wiginieski, 53, of Curitiba; officers said it was the largest seizure recorded in Paraná at the time.
Federal Police in Guaíra stopped a tanker truck on the Ponte Ayrton Senna, which links Paraná to
Mato Grosso do Sul, and found 7 tonnes and 129 grams of pressed marijuana hidden inside the tank on
18 June 2004.[1]Driver Tadeu Wiginieski, 53, of Curitiba’s Campo Comprido neighbourhood, was
booked for drug trafficking after officers moved the vehicle to the Guaíra Federal Police office for
a closer search.[1]
Tar residue masked the load
The truck, registered in São José dos Campos, had carried Araucária pitch to Cerrito, Paraguay, and
returned with tar residue still staining the tank, according to the Federal Police press office
quoted by Tribuna do Paraná.[1]Agents found brick-shaped blocks in a compartment; weighing took
most of the day as the tally rose from an initial two-tonne estimate to more than seven tonnes.[1]The newspaper said the haul nearly matched the 7.7 tonnes stored at the local Federal Police depot
from earlier cases, and that officers called it the largest marijuana seizure in Paraná.[1]
Consultor Jurídico later reported that Wiginieski told police he knew he was carrying drugs and
that the load had come from Paraguay; an appellate court in 2005 upheld his conviction for
transporting the marijuana.[2]Tribuna’s seizure report names no other arrests and does not
mention the ammunition the appellate judgment lists.[1][2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Tribuna do Paraná published on 19 June 2004; the Federal Police press office said the load came from Cerrito, Paraguay, after the truck carried Araucária pitch, but the opened seizure story does not name the traffickers who hired Wiginieski.
A 2005 appellate judgment reported by Consultor Jurídico also lists pistol and revolver ammunition found with the load; Tribuna’s same-day seizure account mentions only marijuana.
Officers spent the day weighing bricks and initially estimated two tonnes before the total passed seven tonnes; the sources do not give a street-value figure.
Santa Catarina's BOPE special operations battalion seized about 420 kg of a substance resembling marijuana from an uninhabited house used as a drug depot in Guarda do Cubatão, Palhoça, in the early hours of 11 November 2026 after a neighbours' tip. Officers saw the tablets through a window; the load went to the Civil Police station and no arrests were announced.
Federal Highway Police arrested a 44-year-old truck driver in the early hours of 11 November 2026 after finding more than half a tonne of skunk, about 591 packages, in a false bottom of his truck's cargo body at km 319 of the BR-070 in Jussara, Goiás. The load had left Cacoal, Rondônia, bound for Goiânia, and the driver was to be paid R$10,000.
Paraná's Border Police Battalion and federal agencies seized 7,781 kg of marijuana and skunk hidden in a maize load on a bitrem truck stopped on BR-163 near Marechal Cândido Rondon, and arrested a 30-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman. The operation, part of Operação Protetor, ran from 10 to 11 November 2026, and the battalion put the loss to organised crime at R$16,318,000.
Federal Highway Police officers seized 245.6 kilograms of marijuana from a white Chevrolet Onix that fled an inspection on the BR-163 in Lindoeste, western Paraná, on the night of 10 November 2026. The 25-year-old driver and a 16-year-old passenger were taken with the car and the drug to the Civil Police station in Cascavel.
