At the end of the 1970s, Chinese merchandise moved to Brazil via Paraguay, forming an on-the-margins-of-the-law trade chain involving the production, distribution, and consumption of cheap goods. Economic changes in the 21^st century, including the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the growing importance of emerging economies, have had a dramatic effect on how this chain works, criminalizing and dismantling a trade system that had previously functioned in an organized form and stimulated the circulation of goods, money, and people at transnational...