The threat of drug trafficking

The threat of drug trafficking

Peter Kopa, Prague, 25.2.2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw9uDSAVT2E

A country can fall ill and suffer greatly, just like a person: there is an obvious parallel in this comparison. The viruses and microbes that always threaten society are the lack of awareness of its own dignified identity. As long as this identity is safeguarded by the observance of the ethical principles that flow from it, society lives in peace and is happy, even if it is poor. Otherwise, what we deplore hereafter may happen, not as a political or economic question, but as a moral one. https://thinktanklatam.org/2024/01/03/el-privilegio-de-los-hijos-de-familia/

A warning for Europe

In Europe, unfortunately, a new, higher-priced cocaine market has emerged, which has become more attractive to the mafias. According to Europol, cocaine is now the second most abused drug in Europe after cannabis. According to the UN ‘Drug Report’, more cocaine residues are detected in Europe’s sewage than anywhere else in the world. Since 2019, more cocaine is seized each year in Europe than in the United States.

Also in Europe, all ports and their surroundings are experiencing increasing problems due to the explosion of cocaine smuggling. It is only a matter of time before the police, justice, customs and prisons suffer from the evil infiltration of this gangsterism. The funds available to the mafias are enormous and also the high demand for cocaine are the driving factors. In Europe, too, there is a confusing web of competencies and responsibilities in the fight against drug trafficking.  It is urgent that European countries agree on an effective solidarity strategy to counteract this cancer, which also in the old world can disintegrate a state and the society that supports it.

Ecuador, yet another drug victim

The struggle between drug traffickers and the government exists throughout Latin America. However, it is intensifying and widening in certain countries, such as now in Ecuador, where organized crime is openly declaring war on the government. In Latin America, this has so far only occurred in Colombia, where for a long time it also had a political dimension, as the Farc guerrillas saw themselves as the liberators of the country, justifying drug trafficking by financing the leftist revolution.

In August last year, hired assassins shot dead presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Ecuador. He had previously denounced the links between the Los Choneros drug trafficking clan and high-ranking members of the judiciary, the military and in politics, and had said at the time that his life was under threat. He was killed shortly thereafter.

And in the six months since, Ecuador’s drug cartels have once again challenged the state: last week they paralyzed the country with attacks, kidnappings and the occupation of a television channel. The main mafia bosses were able to get out of high security prisons unpunished. President Daniel Noboa, who has just taken office, has declared a state of emergency and ordered the military to pursue the drug gangs. https://thinktanklatam.org/2023/05/13/el-poder-del-dinero/

Pursuit of drug trafficking is difficult

The war for market share and drug routes is particularly striking in Mexico, where drug clans have long controlled entire sub-states. The state has lost sovereignty and control over large parts of its territory, so murder rates are notoriously high, in the tens of thousands of cases.

Repression also looks increasingly unpromising: the public security forces are in fact inferior to the growing quasi-military power of the clans. The clans know how to infiltrate the legal forces of law and order, so the latter are losing effectiveness and credibility.  Mexican clans control the U.S. business, where they ship drugs directly or through Central America. More cocaine is being produced today than ever before. According to the UN’s “World Drug Report 2023,” cocaine production has multiplied by 150% since 2015. Coca cultivation has spread massively, especially in Colombia, which produces 60% of the world’s cocaine. During peace negotiations with the güerilla in this country, the state ceded control of large parts of the country.

South America: transit route and consumer market

Cocaine transit has made South America the third largest consumer market in the world after the USA and Europe. In South America, there is not only a large middle class of some 150 million people who can consume cocaine. The crack-smoking poor also constitute an attractive market for the clans. Today there are crack neighborhoods in every city.

The clans are looking for transportation routes they can control for the new substance destined for wealthy Europeans. All port cities in South America now have serious problems with drug smuggling. Guayaquil in Ecuador and Santos in Brazil are considered the most important smuggling ports. However, ports in relatively safe countries that were not known as drug corridors are also used for smuggling, such as Montevideo in Uruguay or Valparaiso in Chile.

The drug clans infiltrate the state and the economy: they have infiltrated the judiciary, the police, political parties and parliaments. All local journalists know the deputies, senators, judges and police chiefs who are in the pay of the mafias or are prominent members of these organizations.

The growing presence of drug mafias in the State weakens its anti-crime measures. Corrupt officials or judges neutralize successful police actions. As a consequence, other illegal activities increase in the wake of drug trafficking, such as arms and human trafficking.

The final phase, money laundering

Everywhere, drug cartels channel illegal money into the legal economic cycle to launder it. This is less noticeable in large economies like Brazil than in small countries like Uruguay or Ecuador. Drug money also triggers other criminal activities. For example, drug clans in the Amazon region finance illegal loggers and gold prospectors.

There are currently two state approaches to drug clans: tolerance or repression. Some governments try to keep crime under control by tolerating the drug business. According to the slogan: We leave you alone in the drug business, but you control general criminality. No government openly admits to having made pacts with drug traffickers. Dialoguing and making deals with them can only contribute to even greater general criminality.

Source: German press, NZZ, Switzerland, 22.2.2024