ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — Even Paraguay’s antidrug chief couldn’t believe what was happening.



In October, officials there said they had foiled a plot to deploy a car bomb packed with 187 pounds of explosives to free a jailed drug lord.

Days later, heavily armed men threatened in a video to kill the country’s attorney general. “There is a price on your head,” the men warned.



Then came two chilling murders: A lawyer who represented drug king pins was assassinated as she stepped out of a meeting, and a young woman was stabbed to death with a dinner knife while visiting a drug trafficker in prison.

“These past incidents are like scenes you only see in movies,” said Arnaldo Guizzio, the head of Paraguay’s counternarcotics agency.