[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Considering the size of the Argentine and Chilean economies, as well as the geographic distance from their borders to the Caribbean, how plausible is it that these two nations run intelligence operations of their own in the Caribbean?

They'll have people in their embassies whose job is to report on local events. Those will be most interested in places that Argentina and Chile have a lot of trade with, especially wherever their oil supplies come from.

There also appear to be some recent contacts between such Brazilian organizations as the Red Commando and at least one Andean organization.

It sounds as if Argentina, Brazil and Chile might be starting to plan countermeasures to the Andean criminal organisations. This will result in them acquiring evidence of the supernatural in a while, but probably not for a year or two.

I never even considered that the Dutch possessions in the Caribbean might have connections with Brazil, as the closest historical tie I knew about was the 17th century.

Neither did I: I looked up the Portuguese language and found them that way.

Does knowing Portuguese allow any understanding of Papiamento?

I have no specific knowledge, but I would expect Papiamento to be easy to learn for Portuguese speakers.