Bolivia is awash with contraband cars from Japan
Around 25,000 so-called chutos enter the country every year
SIX DAYS a week not much happens in Challapata, but every Sunday the town’s main square fills with Japanese cars. Few, if any, have licence plates. They are chutos, or contraband cars. Most have been shipped from Japan to Chile, and then smuggled in.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Honk for impunity”
From the March 5th 2022 edition
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