A narco boss bribes multiple justice ministers from prison and luxuriates in a VIP cell. A senator is recorded boasting about buying off judges, but is still re-elected thanks to a closed party list system. Taxpayers foot the bill for medical insurance covering liposuction and implants for low-level public employees.

These are just some of the many embarrassing episodes in the past two years alone in Paraguay, a country notorious for its culture of public malfeasance and long faithful to the words of its late dictator Alfredo Stroessner that “corruption is the price of peace.” In Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, Paraguay placed 135th out of 170 states, with only Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela performing worse in the Americas. ...