Latin America and the Caribbean: Illicit Drug Trafficking and U.S. Counterdrug Programs

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Authorities in new york have indicted a suspected mexican drug kingpin they say was responsible for trafficking enough fentanyl to kill 10 million people. Mexico murder rate surges to highest in decades amid rise in drug trafficking voilence. Drug trafficking through central america is more threatening than ever before to combat high levels of organized crime, cartel activity, violence, and. The story of drug trafficking in latin america mexico's drug trafficking chivis martinez for borderland beat from sinbargo thank you tully the.

Albuquerque, nm — new mexico state police officer daniel capehart, who worked patrol in the northwest part of. The largest cash seizure in history justice department felipe calderon sent 50, soldiers after the drug cartels when he became president of mexico in Indeed, during much of the first decade of the s Colombia became one of the most dangerous and violent countries in the world.

The Life Of An Eight Ball Of Cocaine

Currently, the area under cultivation in Colombia is estimated at 62, ha. In comparison, statistics report 73, ha in terms of area under cultivation. As the Uribe administration and the US-backed Plan Colombia succeeded at least partially in Colombia in the war against cocaine traffickers, the major drug trafficking networks in Mexico took advantage of the vacuum left in the drug trade to take over control of cocaine smuggling operations from Colombia into the United States.

As a consequence, drug-related violence and criminality shifted northwards into Mexican territory as various Mexican trafficking organizations vied for control over the highly lucrative smuggling trade from Colombia and the southern Andes into the large and profitable US market. The most likely outcome is that it will drive both further underground in Mexico while pushing many smuggling activities and criminal network operations into neighboring countries such as Guatemala and Honduras and back to Colombia and the Andes.

Indeed, evidence that some Mexican drug trafficking operations Sinaloa, Zetas are moving from Mexico into Central America is already abundant. How large the reductions in Colombian coca cultivation in the past three years have actually been is a controversial topic, plagued by inadequate data, methodological problems, and major uncertainties regarding the actual extent of cultivation and yield levels.

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Given similar caveats, coca cultivation in both Peru and Bolivia, after almost two decades of decline, appears once again to have expanded. Evidently, the balloon effect that allowed coca cultivation to shift north from Bolivia and Peru to Colombia in the s continues to operate as cultivation moved back into Peru and Bolivia from Colombia at the end of the first decade of the s. Various observers have speculated about the possibility that the tropical variety of coca — known in Portuguese as Epadu — might well balloon coca cultivation from its traditional growing areas on the eastern slopes of the Andes into Brazil and elsewhere in the Amazon basin in coming years, if ongoing or renewed eradication efforts prove successful in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.


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First, it is important to note that year-to-year variations are commonplace owing to climate factors and short-term disruptions; declines over several years are required to identify enduring trends. Second, the UN statistics are approximations along a range rather than firm data points; it is entirely possible that the UN report underestimate the real levels of production.

Third, innovations in more productive hybrid plants, yields-per-hectare and processing can produce higher levels of refined cocaine production than anticipated by the UN analysts. Finally, the ongoing decentralization and dispersion of cultivation in Colombia makes accurate mapping of the total numbers of hectares under cultivation a very problematic endeavor. As a consequence of the weakening of FARC control in vast stretches of rural Colombia and the partial demobilization of the paramilitary bands engaged in drug trafficking over the period , marked the beginning of an important decline after at least three years of steady increases in total production.

To sustain this decline will certainly require that Colombia continue its manual eradication efforts and that it provide additional funds for well-designed and executed alternative development programs in coca growing areas throughout the country Youngers and Walsh, ; also Felbab-Brown et al. To forestall a recurrence of the balloon effect — pushing cultivation out of one country only to have it reappear in others — the Obama administration will have to seek to reestablish a workable relation with the government of President Evo Morales in Bolivia and find effective ways to combat the resurgence of Sendero Luminoso Shining Path and coca cultivation in Peru.

Failure to achieve more effective drug control policies in both countries will likely result in a continuing shift of coca production back to Peru and Bolivia, thereby nullifying any real progress made in reducing coca cultivation in Colombia over the medium term. They were quickly replaced over the mid to late s and early s with new routes that used Panama and Central America, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Corridor to reach Mexico and then cross from Mexico into United States Bagley, ; Scott and Marshall, As a result, some of the Mexican trafficking organizations have begun to move into Central America — especially Guatemala and Honduras — to take advantage of these much weaker states to conduct their smuggling operations, Bagley, ; Farah, ; ICG, Venezuela is a jumping off point for smuggling through the Caribbean to the east coast of the United States or across the Atlantic through West Africa into Europe.

Venezuela also is used for drug flights into Honduras or Guatemala where the shipments are then transferred to trucks and transported by land across the Guatemalan-Mexican border northwards to the United States. Over the past twenty five years and more, the war on drugs conducted by the United States and its various Latin American and Caribbean allies has succeeded repeatedly in shifting coca cultivation from one area to another in the Andes and in forcing frequent changes in smuggling routes.

But it has proven unable to disrupt seriously, much less stop permanently, either production or trafficking in the hemisphere. The traffickers constant, successful adaptations to law enforcement measures designed to end their activities have lead to the progressive contamination of more and more countries in the region by the drug trade and its attendant criminality and violence Archibald and Cave, The demise of the major cartels opened the way for illegal armed actors such as the FARC and the paramilitaries.

In Colombia, the rise and fall of Medellin and Cali and subsequently the Norte del Valle cartel vividly illustrate the perils and vulnerabilities of large, hierarchical criminal trafficking organizations, especially when they attempt to confront the state openly. Both major cartels in Colombia were hierarchically structured and proved to be vulnerable targets for Colombian and international law enforcement agencies. Although there may be counter-tendencies leading to re-concentration among criminal trafficking organizations in Colombia today e. As of , this struggle was still playing itself out in brutal and bloody fashion.


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    • If it does, the trend would be warmly welcomed by Mexican governing authorities because it would portend a considerable diminution in the capacity of organized criminal networks in Mexico to directly challenge state authority and national security. Unlike its predecessors and current rivals in Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel is less hierarchical and more federative hub and spokes in its organizational structure. To date, Sinaloa, also known as the Federation, seems to be winning the war against its rivals, although its fight against the Zetas a paramilitary-style organization is proving to be prolonged, costly, and bloody.

    LAS111: Intro to Latin America: LAS Country Statistics

    Under former mayor now governor of Antioquia Sergio Fajardo, Medellin did see a significant decline in violence rates for several years — especially homicide statistics — via informal negotiations with the gangs, new mayoral initiatives to reduce gang violence e. In such neighbourhoods, drug traffickers have found readily accessible pools of new gang members and many potential drug consumers, as well as efficient corridors for smuggling drugs and arms. While no recent statistics are available, anecdotal evidence indicates that the numbers of maras active in Juarez and Mexico more generally appear to have increased steadily to above 25, Figure 2 Municipalities with five or more organized crime-related deaths Guatemala and Honduras are currently targets for both the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas.

    Criminal organizations, in contrast, do not determine the type of state, although they certainly can deter or inhibit political reform efforts at all levels of a political system from local to national. The United States, for example, has eliminated the Italian mafia model and seen it replaced by fragmented and widely dispersed domestic criminal organizations, many affiliated with immigrant communities.

    Europe is characterized by a similar evolution of organized crime groups affiliated with immigrant populations.

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    Japan, in contrast, has coexisted with the Yakuza, a more corporate-style criminal network. In China, state capitalism coexists with the Chinese triads and other criminal organizations. In Russia, the Putin government, in effect, subordinated and incorporated various elements of the Russian mafia as para-state organizations Bagley, In Mexico, the formerly dominant PRI party developed almost tributary relations with organized crime groups.

    Mexico is experiencing precisely such a transition. The old institutions — police, courts, prisons, intelligence agencies, parties, elections — no longer work. Indeed, they are manifestly corrupt and dysfunctional. Counterdrug Programs , report , March 19, ; Washington D.

    Drug traffiking in mexico

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