Before being allowed inside the Paraguay jail cell of a notorious drug kingpin, I braced for an intrusive pat down. But the skinny guard standing just outside the bars barely touched me as he briskly ran his hands down my arms and back.

I was at the prison to interview Marcelo Pinheiro Veiga, who had resorted to an audacious gambit to resist being extradited to his native Brazil: He had confessed to a litany of crimes committed in Paraguay.

After the perfunctory search, I entered the small cell and sat about a foot away from Mr. Veiga, close enough to notice his breath smelled fresh.

“Paraguay is the land of impunity,” Mr. Veiga told me after describing a long criminal career that led him to become one of the major smugglers of arms and drugs from Paraguay to Brazil.

Ernesto Londoño, writing for The New York Times, shares this remarkable story out of Paraguay.