Tintin and the Picaros (Part 1).Tintin hears in the news that Bianca Castafiore, her maid Irma, pianist Igor Wagner, and Thomson and Thompson have been imprisoned in San Theodoros for allegedly attempting to overthrow the military dictatorship of General Tapioca, who has yet again deposed Tintin's old friend, General Alcazar. Tintin, Calculus, and Haddock soon are accused themselves and, travelling to San Theodoros to clear their names (though Tintin at first refuses, only to change his mind and follow a couple of days later), find themselves caught in a trap laid by their old enemy, Colonel Sponsz, who has been sent by the Eastern Bloc nation of Borduria to assist Tapioca. Sponsz has concocted the conspiracy of which Tintin and his friends are accused in a plot to wreak revenge upon them for humiliating him in The Calculus Affair.