Deforestation in Colombia has fallen to its lowest levels in 23 years, suggesting the government’s fight against environmental crime has yielded results. But criminal groups could also play a role in the decrease in destruction.

Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Susana Muhammad announced on July 8 a 36% reduction in deforestation in 2023 compared to the previous year.  The number of deforested hectares fell from 123,517 hectares in 2022 to 79,256 hectares last year, according to a government report.

SEE ALSO: GameChangers 2023: A Win Against Deforestation in the Amazon, For Now

The study was conducted with the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales – IDEAM), which is charged with producing technical and scientific knowledge about natural resources in Colombia. The departments most affected by this phenomenon were Caquetá (12,647 hectares), Guaviare (11,467 hectares), Putumayo (10,852 hectares), Meta (10,310 hectares) and Antioquia (8,139 hectares), all located in Colombia’s Amazon region, with the exception of Antioquia. 

The main drivers of deforestation were land grabbing, extensive cattle ranching, illegal roads, illicit crops, illegal mining and logging, and the expansion of agricultural lands beyond their legal limits.

The figures are the lowest in 23 years, making it an “iconic year in the fight against deforestation,” Muhammad said.

“We are meeting and exceeding our targets. We have identified that there is a direct association between peace and deforestation. Peaceful conditions generate reduction,” she added.

InSight Crime Analysis

Although the 2023 figure reverses several years of high levels of deforestation, it is important to note the role criminal organizations play in the fluctuation of this criminal activity.

Just a year after the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) and the government, Colombia experienced one of the highest deforestation rates in the last 10 years. In 2017, the country reached its highest peak in a decade, with 219,552 hectares deforested as a result of the FARC’s departure from woodlands it had imposed strict control over.

Although deforestation dropped between 2018 and 2019 (to 197,159 hectares and 158,894 hectares respectively), it rose again between 2020 and 2021 as groups that rejected the peace agreement, known as ex-FARC mafia, got more involved in criminal economies such as illegal logging and mining. That was on top of an end to the restrictions on deforestation that their predecessors the FARC had imposed. 

SEE ALSO: Five Security Challenges for Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s Next President

In 2022, the trend changed again. Prior to Gustavo Petro’s victory in the presidential elections, the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC), a confederation of ex-FARC dissident structures with a significant presence in the Amazon, adopted a policy of reducing logging in its areas of control, which reportedly had a positive effect on deforestation.

This rule was maintained through 2023, and it is possible that the EMC used it as a bargaining chip during negotiations with the Petro government. 

However, the emergence of divisions within the group, paired with the withdrawal of several dissident factions from peace negotiations with the government, puts the issue of armed groups and their relationship with the forest back on the table, especially those with control in the Amazon region and that could embrace illegal logging and other destructive criminal markets again. 

In that sense, the community-based approach that the government has prioritized with respect to the fight against environmental crime might not be enough to stop the armed groups from embracing deforestation as a business opportunity. 

“It’s impossible to enter some of the areas where deforestation is concentrated. So it’s very difficult for the government to implement conservation plans there,” said Juan Carlos Sandino, a conservation expert.

“Deforestation reduction programs and payment for environmental services are great, but they don’t attack the big loggers. The timber business has never stopped and never will because it’s so lucrative.”

The post Colombia’s Historic Drop in Deforestation Could Be Linked to Criminal Groups appeared first on InSight Crime.

The recent US designation of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a transnational criminal organization puts the group on par with major security threats in Latin America and presents a new challenge to its so-far unstoppable regional expansion.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on July 11 that it had placed Tren de Aragua on its list of transnational criminal organizations that threaten the stability of security in the Western Hemisphere.

“Today’s designation of Tren de Aragua as a significant Transnational Criminal Organization underscores the escalating threat it poses to American communities,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson.

SEE ALSO: Is Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua ‘Invading’ the US?

The US State Department, together with the Colombian National Police, also announced rewards for information leading to the arrest of the main leaders and key figures of the Venezuelan gang. Up to $5 million is being offered for information leading to Hector Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero“; up to $4 million for Yohan Jose Romero, known as “Johan Petrica“; and up to $3 million for Giovanny San Vicente, alias “Giovanny” or “El Viejo.”

The move by US authorities against Tren de Aragua and its leadership comes after Republican senators in March this year sent a request to President Joe Biden seeking the designation, despite the fact that the group appears to have a minimal and limited presence in the United States.

“If left unchecked, they will unleash an unprecedented reign of terror, mirroring the devastation it has already inflicted in communities throughout Central and South America, most prominently in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru,” the lawmakers emphasized.

Tren de Aragua began as a prison gang within the walls of the Tocorón prison, in the state of Aragua in central Venezuela. From there, it built a center of operations that allowed it to expand, first nationally and then to other parts of Latin America.

Its regional growth coincided with the massive exodus of some 8 million Venezuelans who have sought refuge in different countries in the region, including the United States. The first official reports of the group’s growing international presence emerged in Colombia in 2018, a country that shares a border with Venezuela and is the first stop for most migrants.

InSight Crime Analysis

While Tren de Aragua’s new categorization positions it among the top security threats in the region, this new status also represents a strategic challenge for its leaders. They will need to adapt their expansion plans to a new and unprecedented level of scrutiny for the group.

The international growth of different factions of Tren de Aragua in Latin America over the last six years is one of the most remarkable criminal developments in recent times. From the walls of Tocorón, it went on to have a presence and illicit activities in countries including Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, where its factions have managed to make inroads and dominate important criminal economies such as migrant smuggling, human trafficking, extortion, and small-scale drug trafficking.

In its first exploratory steps in the region, Tren de Aragua adopted a low profile and took advantage of migrant communities to go unnoticed. Likewise, a lack of knowledge on the part of local authorities facilitated its unfettered expansion across borders.

An example of the low profile of one of its leaders is Larry Álvarez Núñez, alias “Larry Changa,” who is considered the co-founder and a top leader of Tren de Aragua. In 2018, he managed to enter Chile through the airport with legal documents and without being subjected to any investigation by the authorities.

“When Tren de Aragua arrived in Chile it had a very low profile. … Larry Changa arrived here and set up a couple of businesses, bought a couple of vehicles, rented a couple of apartments without raising major suspicions,” Ignacio Castillo, the director of the organized crime unit of Chile’s Attorney General’s Office (Unidad Especializada en Crimen Organizado del Ministerio Público de Chile), told InSight Crime.

After being identified in 2022 by Chile’s security forces as one of the main leaders of Tren de Aragua, Changa fled to Colombia where he was captured by local authorities in early July 2024.

SEE ALSO: Three Stages in the Construction of Tren de Aragua’s Transnational Empire

With the new designation from the US Treasury Department, Tren de Aragua joins the list of the most notorious criminal organizations in Latin America and the world. The low profile it once maintained no longer exists to help it enter new countries under the radar. 

One of the groups that went through a similar process was the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13), which was the first street gang designated as a transnational criminal organization in October 2012 by the US Treasury Department, mainly due to its violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, as well as its participation in a number of transnational criminal economies.

The designation cast a spotlight on the main leaders of the MS13, leading several of them to confront extradition requests and trials in the US justice system, which now promises to be the new scenario for the main leaders of Tren de Aragua.

Featured image: Posters signaling Tren de Aragua’s main leaders are shown during a press conference. Credit: Colombia’s National Police.

The post US Labels Tren de Aragua a Transnational Criminal Threat appeared first on InSight Crime.

Mexico’s navy warned of an increase in the use of less regulated chemicals for methamphetamine production this week, confirming an innovative trend emerging from the criminal organizations behind synthetic drug manufacturing.

Officials from Mexico’s Navy Secretariat (Secretaría de Marina – Semar) interviewed in the port of Manzanillo, told the La Jornada newspaper on July 6 that Mexican criminal groups are producing their own precursor chemicals to make methamphetamine, rather than importing them from abroad.

Precursor chemicals are the main ingredient in the synthetic drug production process and, in the case of Mexican methamphetamine, the most common ones are 1-phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) and methylamine.

SEE ALSO: Making Synthetic Drugs: A Primer*

To manufacture both, producers use pre-precursors and other essential chemicals such as solvents, catalysts, and binders, which are dual-use substances. These chemicals, in addition to being used for illicit purposes, are widely traded legally to supply a variety of industries, including pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, cosmetics, food, and cleaning products.

According to Semar sources who spoke to La Jornada in the port, they have detected an increase in the importation of dual-use chemicals since around 2022. At the same time, imports of precursor chemicals have dropped.

“There are records that give us certainty that these substances are used in the manufacture of chemical precursors for illicit drugs,” a naval official told La Jornada.

The statement came just days after the seizure of 88 tons of acetic acid in Manzanillo, which sits on the Pacific coast in the state of Colima. The substance is mainly used to produce vinegar but can also be used as a pre-precursor in the production of methamphetamine.

As a result, the importation and sale of acetic acid is monitored in Mexico, which means that companies must justify their intended use to the authorities and make their supply chain transparent. According to Semar, the seizure in Manzanillo occurred after the importer failed to justify the substance’s place of origin.

InSight Crime Analysis

Semar’s recent comments are in line with InSight Crime’s research into Mexico’s precursor chemical supply chain, which found that the methamphetamine production process in Mexico has become more sophisticated.

Initially, Mexican producers used ephedrine as the main precursor for methamphetamine, but following the Mexican government’s imposition of stricter controls on the substance in 2008, they migrated to the P2P and the methylamine method. This method is complicated, according to several specialists consulted by InSight Crime, but allows for a greater diversity of chemical synthesis routes, making it easier for producers to substitute substances they don’t have access to.

SEE ALSO: How Precursor Chemicals Sustain Mexico’s Synthetic Drug Trade

Today, P2P and methylamine are strictly controlled. Mexican producers have stopped importing them from China – one of the main countries supplying the substances – and have learned to synthesize them in the same clandestine laboratories in which they make methamphetamine from pre-precursors legally marketed in Mexico. 

So far, this trend isn’t evident in fentanyl production, mainly because fentanyl pre-precursors have few legal uses. However, it’s something that could happen if producers begin to access less regulated substances from which they can synthesize pre-precursors and subsequently precursors.

*Sara García, Parker Asmann, and Beatriz Vicent contributed to the reporting for this article.

Featured image: Containers in the port of Manzanillo, Colima, México. Credit: Victoria Dittmar/InSight Crime

The post Mexico’s Meth Producers Are Making Their Own Precursors, Government Says appeared first on InSight Crime.

Just 50 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro’s world-famous beaches, one of the city’s most powerful gangsters found a fortune to be made in sand. 

Before he turned himself in to the authorities in December 2023, Luis Antonio da Silva Braga, alias “Zinho,” headed the Bonde do Zinho militia. And beyond its criminal interests in Rio, the group had branched out to the nearby municipality of Seropédica, allegedly working with a Rio de Janeiro state legislator to use floating dredgers, trucks, tractors, backhoes, and silos to illegally scoop up huge amounts of sand.

Satellite photos show the extent of the extraction between about 2011 and 2017.

Most illegally mined sand is used in the construction sector for materials like concrete and bricks as well as for foundation bedding. It is cheaper than legally mined sand, and scant oversight by authorities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean has made sand trafficking a relatively profitable and low-risk activity for criminal groups throughout the region. 

In addition to filling the coffers of sometimes violent criminal groups, illegal sand extraction has caused environmental damage like wildlife extinctions, changes in waterways, and increased flooding. 

But the crime is difficult to police, since differentiating between sand extracted legally and illegally is often impossible. 

SEE ALSO: Q&A: How Sand Trafficking in Brazil Became a Highly Lucrative Crime

“If you’ve got a truckload of illegal sand, it looks exactly the same as a truck of legally mined sand,” Vince Beiser, author of a history of humans’ use of sand, told InSight Crime.

Brazil

Illegal sand extraction is one of the most profitable illicit industries in Brazil, and in much of the country, illegal sand use outstrips legal sand.

Powerful militias like Zinho’s steal sand to supply the irregular real estate market, then continue to make money by monopolizing services for the residents of the illegally constructed buildings.

The lack of effective regulation has led to some of these apartment buildings collapsing. The murder of Rio councilwoman Marielle Franco has been connected to her battle against these illegal construction projects.

Besides controlling spaces where the extraction is illegal, sand mafias extend their command to the commercial market, charging legal extraction companies in that space, according to Luis Fernando Ramadon, a Brazilian federal police officer and expert in illegal sand extraction.

“Considering the legal sand areas, the profit obtained by the militia that controls the municipality of Seropédica, in Rio de Janeiro, can reach 100,000 reais – around $18,000 – per month,” he said.

SEE ALSO: Q&A: Militias Become Luxury Real Estate Barons in Rio de Janeiro

Illegal sand extraction in this region impacts the Guandu River, which supplies water to 9 million people in Rio de Janeiro.

Smaller groups, known as carroceiros, have been detected in the states of Espírito Santo, São Paulo, Bahia, and Paraíba. Though they do not operate on the industrial scale seen in Seropédica, they have been accused of recruiting minors and employing people under slave-like conditions.

“Carroceiros sell sand to building material stores that act outside of the law, which encourages illegal sand extraction,” Ramadon told InSight Crime. 

Colombia

In neighboring Colombia, criminal groups – some with ties to political and economic elites – have turned to sand trafficking to diversify their illicit businesses and increase their profits.

Sand mining gained prominence in Colombia during the 1990s, with the increase in urbanization on the country’s Caribbean coast. As much as half of the sand used in Colombia may be mined illegally, according to some estimates.

The Caribbean department of Magdalena has been particularly affected. Authorities there responded in May to reports of illegal sand extraction in the rural area of Pivijay and caught people extracting sand in dump trucks without authorization.

Magdalena’s political elite have previously been tied to the trade. In 2017, the government said illegal sand extraction was taking place on the property of a prominent lawyer who later ran for mayor in the area. 

In the nearby Caribbean department of Córdoba, sand traffickers seem to have been willing to kill for the sake of their business. Colombian journalist Rafael Moreno was murdered in 2016 after he denounced illegal sand extraction linked to a politically prominent family. 

Mexico

In Mexico, illegal sand extraction has also been tied to elite corruption.

Legally registered companies with permission to mine sand flaunt legal regulations,  and are protected by corrupt local officials, researchers say. Illegal sand extraction often goes unreported due to fears of violent repercussions for whistleblowers.

Some Mexican sand mafias may export their product to the United States, though the issue has not received as much attention from authorities as the smuggling of drugs and people across the border.

Beiser said legal sand mining has gotten public pushback due to its effects on water quality, which could be pushing construction companies in the border region to use illegal sand.

“I would not at all be surprised to learn that illegal sand mining is feeding San Diego’s market now,” Beiser said.

Featured Image: A miner salvages what he can of equipment destroyed by police in La Pampa in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, Friday, May 16, 2014. Credit: AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd.

The post The Mafias Behind Sand Trafficking in Latin America appeared first on InSight Crime.

In February 2024, two young men started hanging out in a store in the central Venezuelan state of Lara. The shop owner, Alejandra*, sold them candy and chatted with them. As the trust between them grew, she even told them about her financial difficulties, and the two men offered her a loan of $300 that she needed to stock her shop. Alejandra accepted, unaware that the seemingly friendly gesture would set off a nightmare. 

Alejandra had to pay the lenders $5 a day in interest, as well as weekly installments towards the amount that she had borrowed. Soon, a lack of sales in the store meant she fell behind on her payments, and within days she began to receive threats, Alejandra’s mother and a neighbor told InSight Crime.

“When my daughter started to fall behind on the installments, they would come to collect and the tone started to be defiant and threatening,” Alejandra’s mother told InSight Crime. “We don’t know where they are from, or where they came from. They never gave any details.” 

Alejandra is one of many victims of gota a gota (“drop by drop”) loans in Venezuela. Criminals offer short-term cash credit at high interest rates, and when borrowers are unable to pay, the lenders resort to violence to intimidate them. 

SEE ALSO: The Fraudsters: Venezuela’s Organized Crime Vultures

This modus operandi is growing in the country as the need for credit rises as a result of a lack of bank loans and increasing dollarization. Between May and June, authorities captured close to 20 people involved in these extortion schemes, compared to 2023, when authorities did not report a single victim during the same period. 

Gota a Gota Migrates to Venezuela

Although gota a gota loans were born in Colombia in the late 1990s, they have expanded to other countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru, and Chile. They are run by local gangs and other nationalities, including Venezuelans. 

Both locals and foreigners are active in Venezuela. In the most recent operation, officers from Venezuela’s criminal investigation unit arrested six men who were extorting small and medium-sized businesses in the state of Miranda. Five of them were Colombian nationals. 

In addition to Colombian extortionists, the arrival of gota a gota loans in the country could be connected to the exodus of Venezuelans who learned the system when they emigrated to Colombia.

SEE ALSO: Latin America’s Criminal Bankers: Explaining Colombians’ Monopoly on Gota-a-Gota

“Those who lend money usually know how the gota a gota system is run in the neighboring country,” said a commissioner from the Venezuelan police. 

Some even try to sound Colombian to generate more fear in people. Alejandra’s mother said one of her daughter’s extortionists had a Colombian accent, but they could not tell if it was fake or real.

Other police officials, journalists, and businessmen in Lara, Falcón, and the Capital District consulted by InSight Crime, said they have identified money lenders who migrated to Colombia and, after returning to Venezuela, began to lend out money and charge high interest rates with threats. 

Dollarization Attracts New Lenders 

After almost a decade of inflation, US dollars started to become the de facto currency in  Venezuela around 2019. The dollar now accounts for 45% of commercial transactions. The use of the dollar has boosted trade, mainly retail, as well as capital flow.

After seeing the profitability of this foreign currency, criminals began to offer loans in dollars with high interest rates, known as paga diario (“daily payment”). 

The lenders hand out cards to vendors advertising “instant loans” or “fast money,” operating in popular areas of Caracas and the interior of the country, vendors and journalists told InSight Crime. 

“These gangs are dedicated to offering false loans in foreign currency, and then, through death threats, force the victims to pay high amounts of money,” criminal investigative police director Douglas Rico said on his Instagram account. 

That is what happened to Alejandra. The friendly relationship she maintained for several days with the lenders who promised to help her business turned hostile after she was unable to pay the interest, amounting to threats that made even her neighbors uncomfortable. Faced with the situation and overcome by fear, Alejandra felt she had no choice but to close her business and flee. 

But the lenders did not stop. When they could not contact her, they threatened her father with a gun and the whole family fell into despair, Alejandra’s mother told InSight Crime. 

“With the daily interest payments, we are paying more than she borrowed,” she said. “We know that they are walking around with guns.”

*The victim’s name has been changed to protect her identity

Featured image: A vendor counts Venezuelan Bolivars and US dollar bills to deliver change for a customer at a public market in the Quinta Crespo neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022. Credit: AP Photo/Matias Delacroix

The post Venezuela Businesses Increasingly Need Dollars. Loansharks Are Taking Advantage. appeared first on InSight Crime.

Around midnight on February 6, 2024, Ecuador’s National Police stormed a beige, two-story villa in a luxurious gated community on the outskirts of Guayaquil, the country’s biggest port city.

Inside, they found a mother with her young daughter, along with multiple firearms and ammunition. The husband, Albanian businessman Dritan Gjika, was nowhere to be found. 

The raid was part of a much bigger law enforcement sweep. That night, police in Spain and Ecuador arrested 31 alleged members of an intercontinental cocaine trafficking syndicate. 

Authorities accused the organization of smuggling tons of cocaine from Colombia through Ecuador to Europe, and linked the network’s members to seizures totaling over 9.5 tons of cocaine. Following the operation, authorities froze assets worth over $51 million. 

Gjika, the group’s alleged leader, is accused of building a sophisticated trafficking operation with the help of influential businessmen connected to the highest levels of government and protected by Ecuador’s chief of police. 

The operation revealed how Gjika allegedly became one of the most prominent Albanian traffickers in Ecuador’s drug trade in recent years. And while much of his network seems to have been swept up in the bust, Gjika himself remains on the lam.

The Move to Ecuador

Beyond the fact that Gjika was born on December 28, 1976, in a town called Shkodër in northern Albania, there are few traces of his early life. In fact, there are few traces of him in Albania at all. 

“In Albania, there is no evidence indicating his involvement in any illegal activity. No criminal investigation or court case has been registered against him, and he has no property or business registered under his name,” Dorjana Bezat, an Albanian journalist who has investigated Gjika, told InSight Crime. 

Gjika first went to Ecuador in November 2009, when he was 33 years old. In 2013, he was granted citizenship and based himself in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s beating economic heart. It was there that he started to build his drug trafficking empire.

He was one of the first Albanian traffickers to set up shop in Ecuador, posing as a businessman. 

“Gjika is a pioneer in terms of going upstream and positioning himself as a key provider of cocaine,” Fatjona Mejdini, a researcher for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, told InSight Crime. 

Gjika and another Albanian bought an export company called Cresmark S.A. in 2014, and Gjika set himself up as the general manager. The same year, he started a construction company with Ecuadorian businessman Rubén Cherres.

Cherres was no stranger to law enforcement. In 1999, he had been arrested on drug trafficking charges after a police raid led to the seizure of 108 packages of cocaine. He was acquitted the next year after several influential figures provided testimonies calling for his release, including Danilo Carrera, brother-in-law of the then-future Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso. 

Aside from his links to politics, Cherres was also well-connected with Ecuador’s business and political elites, making him a powerful ally for Gjika’s allegedly burgeoning drug trafficking scheme.

Though it is unclear exactly when Gjika allegedly began to traffic cocaine to Europe, it is clear he was in the right spot when, in neighboring Colombia, the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) signed a historic peace agreement in 2016. When the FARC demobilized in 2017, dissidents of the FARC’s 48th Front kept their arms and territories on the Colombia-Ecuador border. Lacking contacts with international buyers, they forged an alliance with the Constru, a drug trafficking network that dominated routes into Ecuador’s province of Sucumbíos. The Constru connected the FARC remnants to international buyers, many from the Balkans, including Gjika.

SEE ALSO: Unmasking the Foreign Players on Ecuador’s Criminal Chessboard

According to Ecuadorian and Spanish police, Gjika’s organization initially trafficked cocaine in batches of hundreds of kilograms in containers belonging to Gjika’s company or other complicit companies. 

In 2018, Gjika seemingly tried to grow his business. He bought shares in a second export company, Agricomtrade, which shipped bananas to different European companies.

One of these – Albanian importer Alba Exotic Fruit – has been used to import cocaine in Albania, according to the Albanian public prosecutor. In total, Agricomtrade sent more than 150 shipments to Alba Exotic Fruit. 

Rather than getting his hands dirty, Gjika allegedly contracted out tasks to a vast network of operatives, communicating with them primarily through Skype. 

“He never touched a gram of drugs,” an Ecuadorian anti-narcotics police official, who asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns, told InSight Crime. “He was, as they say here in Ecuador, watching the bulls from afar.”

Gjika allegedly worked with several coordinators who oversaw setting up companies and recruiting public officials.

The organization sourced cocaine from a supplier in Colombia, who delivered four tons of the drug each month to stashing centers in Ecuador, according to reports by the Spanish police. Payments for cocaine shipments were deposited using bank accounts belonging to a member of Gjika’s network, according to Ecuadorian prosecutors. Once the cocaine arrived in Ecuador, Ecuadorian subcontractors handled storage and transport. Gjika’s organization paid these subcontractors in cocaine, according to the anti-narcotics official. 

“They paid them 10 kilos of cocaine and those 10 kilos were not exported, but were redistributed locally,” he said. 

This way, Gjika largely avoided leaving paper trails which would link him to any drug trafficking activity.

Gjika the Invisible

Through his connections with some of Ecuador’s top businesspeople and government officials, Gjika built a network that protected his alleged operations from prosecution. 

“He was somebody really calculated and heavily invested in the business world,” Mejdini said.

His most important contact, authorities say, was Tannya Varela, who was the head of Ecuador’s police between March 2021 and January 2022, and is under investigation by Ecuador’s prosecutor in relation to Gjika.

Ecuadorian lawmakers alleged that Varela started working with Gjika when she was posted at an airport in the province of Guayas. She supposedly helped Gjika by placing trusted police officers in key locations to facilitate his drug trafficking operations, they believe.

To ensure cocaine was received in Europe, Gjika worked with Mario Sánchez Rinaldi, an Argentinian-Italian businessman based in Spain’s Costa del Sol. Rinaldi played a key role in laundering the organization’s profits, according to Spanish and Ecuadorian authorities. Together, they had end-to-end control over a cocaine route from Colombia to Europe. InSight Crime contacted Rinaldi’s lawyer but did not receive a response.

The First Cracks

As law enforcement pressure on his operations grew, Gjika seemed to adapt, changing smuggling methods when necessary. 

In 2020, Dutch police seized a shipment of 1.1 tons of cocaine allegedly belonging to Gjika. In response, Gjika seemingly switched from using his own companies to mostly using a method known as rip-on rip-off, in which shipping containers of non-complicit third parties are opened and drugs added. Once the containers arrive at the destination port, the drugs are removed by gang members, often aided by corrupt port workers.

Gjika’s knowledge and contacts in the export sector were allegedly key in this transition. His organization had access to port infrastructure in Ecuador and privileged shipping data, according to Ecuadorian and Spanish police.

SEE ALSO: Albania’s Largest Cocaine Seizure Points to New European Routes

On a single day in June 2021, Gjika and Cherres founded eight companies, most in the construction sector. Six have since come under investigation for money laundering. Between 2015 and 2024, the organization laundered at least $31 million through these and other companies, according to Ecuador’s public prosecutor. 

However, in mid-2021, Ecuador’s anti-narcotics police launched an investigation that identified Gjika as the head of a cocaine trafficking scheme that involved Cherres and other Ecuadorian businessmen. 

Varela, then the chief of police, appears to have saved them from prosecution. She took the investigators off the case in September 2021, and reassigned them to zones across Ecuador. The case was closed months later in January 2022, just after Varela was removed from office by then-President Lasso. 

In May 2024, public prosecutor Diana Salazar revealed the existence of an investigation into Varela and two other police generals for assigning personnel and leaving criminal acts unpunished. 

Varela denied allegations connecting her to the criminal structure in February. InSight Crime was unable to contact her.

The Empire Crumbles

Gjika came under increasing scrutiny in early 2023 when a flurry of media reports mentioned his name in relation to a high-level corruption scheme. 

On January 9, 2023, the Ecuadorian newspaper La Posta released details surrounding a graft scheme headed by Carrera and Cherres. Lasso, meanwhile, affirmed his support for Carrera.

Then, on February 13, 2023, La Posta published the leaked 2021 police investigation that linked Cherres, and by extension, Carrera, to Gjika and his drug trafficking network. This revealed Gjika’s operations to the public, and led to the reopening of the police investigation closed in January 2022.

SEE ALSO: ‘Clan Farruku’ Arrests Highlight Albanians’ Latin America Cocaine Connections

And, finally, on February 23, 2023, a group of lawmakers led by journalist and then-congress member Fernando Villavicencio published a report with more details on Gjika’s connections to drug trafficking. The report also provided details on the alleged relationship between Varela and Gjika and claimed that Lasso had known about the ties between Carrera, Cherres, and the Albanian drug trafficker since July 2021.

The subsequent national uproar placed Lasso under intense scrutiny over the alleged activities of his brother-in-law and his government’s efforts to cover them up. The investigation into Carrera was reopened, and the possible links with Albanian drug traffickers contributed to a political scandal that culminated in an impeachment proceeding against Lasso. Villavicencio was murdered months later during his political campaign for the presidency.

Escaping the Heat

Gjika reportedly left Ecuador on January 9, 2023, the same day as the first release of information by La Posta. 

Since then, it is unclear whether he has continued his drug trafficking operations. In March 2023, his long-term business partner Cherres was killed. Cherres had been a key witness in the judicial procedure against Gjika’s drug trafficking network. Carrera is under investigation by Ecuador’s Attorney General for running a corruption network together with Cherres. He did not respond to InSight Crime’s request for comment.

Wiretaps released in March 2024 suggest Gjika may have wanted Cherres dead over an unpaid debt.

It also appears Gjika has dumped shares in several of his other companies, including Agricomtrade, onto members of his criminal organization. These members have since been charged with money laundering for Gjika’s organization through illicit transactions using these companies.

The joint operation in February 2024 dismantled much of Gjika’s alleged trafficking infrastructure, as many high-ranking members of his organization were arrested. They are currently facing trial over drug trafficking and money laundering charges in Ecuador. 

Nonetheless, Gjika’s economic activity in Ecuador has continued despite his absence. In October 2023, he founded the company Riomel Gold Corporation, dedicated to trading in precious metals. Riomel Gold is still active as of today, according to Ecuador’s business registry. InSight Crime could reach neither Gjika nor Riomel Gold for comment.

Since the takedown of Gjika’s alleged allies, authorities in Ecuador have not arrested any other major Albanian drug traffickers. But demand for cocaine in Europe remains high, and other transatlantic networks are filling the gap in demand.

The post The Pioneering Albanian Trafficker Who Took Ecuador’s Drug Trade By Storm appeared first on InSight Crime.

Brazilian cyber gangs are increasingly stealing data and holding it for ransom, and getting ahead of law enforcement, which is struggling to keep up with an explosion of cyber crimes. 

Cybersecurity incidents hit record monthly highs in January and April of this year, according to Brazil’s federal cybersecurity agency. 

Recent targets have included major financial institutions with cybersecurity capabilities beyond those of the average Brazilian business. On July 1, a group going by the name of RansomHub, began leaking stolen information from Brazil’s Financial Co-operative System (Sistema de Cooperativas Financeiras do Brasil – Sicoob) a week after Sicoob announced it had been hacked and its data were being held hostage. 

A massive and increasingly online economy, Brazil has become a major target for cybercriminals at home and abroad. 

Almost half of the attacks Brazil’s government has detected so far in 2024 involved some sort of data being leaked. With banking, healthcare, education, and so many other industries now taking place online, data is increasingly valuable – and vulnerable. 

SEE ALSO: US Crypto Money Laundering Indictment Reflects Increased Enforcement Efforts

One of the biggest threats has been stealer software, which is malware designed to grab people’s login information and other credentials. Brazil is subject to more attacks involving stealer software than any other country in the world, according to cyber threat intelligence company SOCRadar. 

Another strategy involves using ransomware to lock up an organization’s data with unbreakable encryption. Either the victims pay to restore their access, or – as in Sicoob’s case – the data gets leaked.

“Today, data is gold,” said Daniela Dupuy, cybercrime prosecutor and director of Argentina’s Observatory of Cybercrime and Digital Evidence for Criminal Investigations (Observatorio en Cibercrimen y Evidencia Digital en Investigaciones Criminales – OCEDIC).

Brazil’s Cybercrime Groups

Cyber criminals often combine specialties, with different members focusing on writing malware, building fake websites, or laundering money. Operating online brings additional challenges to identifying those responsible for cyber attacks, but researchers and law enforcement have been able to identify several groups based in Brazil.

Identifying a group requires collecting digital breadcrumbs until there are enough different connections to show that a specific group is operating together. The type of malware used, the tactics, what targets they go after, usernames, and hours of operations are all analyzed to find unique identifiers that characterize a group – a process that may take years of data collection and analysis. 

One prominent Brazilian group is UNC5176. This group has primarily attacked financial institutions, targeting banks throughout Latin America as well as in Spain, according to a report by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and cybersecurity firm Mandiant. 

UNC5176 uses a specific type of malware called the URSA Trojan or Mispadu. When victims click a link on a fake website or malicious email, the malware installs itself. The program then steals login credentials from the victims’ browsers or creates fake pop-ups when a victim visits a banking site, tricking the user into inputting their banking information, which is then sent to a server in Brazil controlled by the cyber gang. 

SEE ALSO: How Russian Cybercrime Group, Conti, Terrorized Latin America and Vanished

A similar malware called Grandoreiro has been making the rounds throughout Brazil. Though multiple groups often use the same malicious software, Grandoreiro has been spreading throughout the region in part due to a group known as FLUXROOT, according to TAG and Mandiant’s analysis. 

Then there’s PINEAPPLE, a cybercrime group that impersonates Brazil’s federal tax service. The group has sent fake emails that appear to come from an official government address and created a clone of the department’s website to trick victims into installing malicious software. 

While the world of cybercrime is often associated with the dark web, Brazilian groups often operate more above ground. 

“Brazil has always had a very kind of unique cyber criminal community,” Luke McNamara, deputy chief of analysis at Mandiant, told InSight Crime. “It’s a lot more Telegram and WhatsApp based, which I think is also unique because it provides a little bit more ease for new membership.”

Hunting Ghosts

The remote nature of cyber crimes allows criminal groups to reach victims from afar while law enforcement struggles to identify, locate, and arrest the perpetrators. 

The transnational nature of these crimes creates major jurisdictional and cooperative hurdles. UNC5176, for example, has targeted victims in Mexico and Spain, siphoning their data to a server in Brazil. This demands cooperation between law enforcement on different continents and from different government agencies speaking different languages, and operating under different laws and constraints.

Even when the criminals and victims are in the same country, investigations can have a transnational component. Companies regularly use cloud services, where their data is stored on hardware in remote centers, which can complicate the evidence-gathering process.

“Digital evidence … is held by the private sector. They all have their companies or their headquarters abroad, and that’s where they have all the evidence that a prosecutor needs to investigate,” Dupuy said. 

SEE ALSO: Digital Wild West: Latin America Unprepared for Crypto-Crime

Digital information is also constantly being written and deleted, with cybercriminals adding new elements to hide their tracks.

“It’s much easier for electronic evidence to be totally destroyed than physical evidence,” Dupuy said. 

Brazil has made efforts to bolster its capacity against cybercrime in recent years. The Federal Police launched a specialized unit in 2022 focused on the most complex cyber threats. But it continues to lag behind many of its peers, and came second-to-last out of 20 major countries in terms of cybersecurity policies, according to the MIT Technology Review’s latest Cyber Defence Index.  

Prevention is a further struggle. With a lot of the stealer software evading antivirus scans and relying on fooling victims into installing the malware, authorities have limited options in what they can do to stop the scams before they have already made the rounds. 

At the same time, the growing awareness of organized cybercrime has pushed many companies to invest in bolstered protections. Cyber threats are now second only to climate change in risks backing businesses in Brazil, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer. And companies are increasingly investing in proactive testing of their cybersecurity defenses to seek out vulnerabilities before criminals find them. 

The post Kidnapping Data for Ransom Is a Booming Business in Brazil appeared first on InSight Crime.

The arrest in Colombia of one of the co-founders and principal leaders of Tren de Aragua represents the most significant blow to the transnational group’s leadership so far, and opens a window for future fragmentations.

After months of tracking him, the Colombian National Police captured Larry Álvarez Nuñez, alias “Larry Changa,” the co-founder and leader of Tren de Aragua, on July 1. They arrested him in a mansion in the municipality of Circasia, in the coffee-growing region of Colombia’s Quindio department.

Álvarez is one of the three main leaders and founders of Tren de Aragua, along with Hector Rusthenford, alias “Niño Guerrero,” and Yohan Jose Romero, alias “Johan Petrica.” Álvarez was being held in Tocorón prison in Venezuela, where the criminal group was born, in 2007, but escaped in 2015 with the help of the gang. His whereabouts were unknown until he went to Chile in 2018.

“[Álvarez] was in charge of the criminal strategy for the territorial expansion of the ‘Tren de Aragua’ in Colombian territory, ” according to a Colombian Defense Ministry publication on the social network X.

SEE ALSO: Is Tren de Aragua ‘invading’ the United States?

Changa first traveled to Colombia in 2022 with false documents, according to the Colombian authorities. He’d been living in Chile for the previous four years but fled in the face of increasing investigations against him. He’d made it to Chile like hundreds of thousands of other Venezuelan migrants, with his documents in order and no criminal record, according to police, judicial, and academic sources who spoke to InSight Crime from Chile’s capital Santiago.

Once there, Álvarez was key to the growth and consolidation of the Tren de Aragua in Chile. Under his leadership, the gang became one of the country’s principal criminal groups, controlling key border crossings for migrant smuggling, human trafficking, and extortion in urban areas. He gradually expanded the group’s criminal portfolio into kidnapping for ransom, drug dealing, and money laundering.

“He demonstrated a capacity for entrepreneurship. He is a guy who has a certain organizational capacity,” Tanía Gajardo, director of the Organized Crime Unit (UCO) of Chile’s National Prosecutor’s Office, told InSight Crime.

InSight Crime Analysis 

Following the fall of Tocorón prison, Tren de Aragua’s base in Venezuela, in September 2023, the capture of Larry Changa is the most significant blow the gang has been dealt so far.

His detention creates a leadership vacuum the group has not faced before. The fact that Álvarez and other senior leaders of the Tren de Aragua are behind bars could cause the proliferation of new structures within the group, as has happened with the Tren del Coro in Arica, a former Tren de Aragua faction that decided to go independent following the arrest and murder of several of the group’s original leaders.

“The same thing can happen here that happened in the case of the Gallegos. When the first mass arrest took place in Arica, an arm of them broke off, and some soldiers from the Gallegos created their own criminal organization: Tren del Coro,” said Carlos Basso, an investigative journalist from Chile with access to documents from the Attorney General’s Office at the time.

The Tren de Aragua cells that have expanded throughout South America have adapted to the urban criminal dynamics of each city where they have a presence, a modus operandi that Changa himself helped establish. 

SEE ALSO: Chile Court Bomb Threat Exposes Tren de Aragua’s War Against the State

After spending several years as an informal vendor in the center Santiago, authorities discovered that Changa was the owner of two vehicles connected to homicides in popular areas of the capital, He was arrested and made to attend an inquest.

“In his statement he says he is part of an organization called Tren de Aragua and apparently that had no effect on the prosecutor who was investigating those homicides,” Basso told InSight Crime. “Subsequently, they ordered the detectives to let him go because there was not enough evidence.”

Once back in hiding, Álvarez established himself as the leader of the main Tren de Aragua faction in the country, and brought in Carlos Gonzalez Vaca, alias “Estrella,” and Hernan David Landaeta Garlotti, alias “Satanás,” as lieutenants. They were both eventually arrested between 2022 and 2023.

After fleeing to Colombia, Álvarez continued to lead the gang’s operations in Chile, Hassel Barrientos, head of Chile’s Metropolitan Anti-Kidnapping Special Police Investigations Brigade (BIPE), told La Tercera.

However, following his capture, it is uncertain whether the faction under his leadership, known locally as the Pirates of Aragua, will continue under the mantle of the Tren de Aragua. So far, no new leaders or leadership have emerged.

Featured image: Larry Álvarez Núñez, alias “Larry Changa” after he was arrested by the Police. Credit: Policía Nacional de Colombia.

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Violence increased in parts of northern Brazil over the past decade as criminal factions, bolstered by mass incarceration, fought over emerging cocaine trafficking routes in this region, a new report shows.

The report covers the expansion period of various criminal organizations across the country, such as the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho – CV), among other criminal dynamics. 

The Atlas of Violence 2024 (Atlas da Violência) by the Brazilian Institute for Applied Economic Research (Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada – IPEA) and the Brazilian Public Security Forum (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública – FBSP), drew on from data in Brazil from 2012 to 2022.

SEE ALSO: Data InSights: Security Boost to Tackle Brazil’s Flood Chaos Led to More Marijuana Seizures

Below, InSight Crime presents some of the report’s key takeaways.

Shifting Cocaine Routes Led to Increased Violence

Gangs disputing emerging drug trafficking routes in northern and northeastern Brazil drove homicide rates up in several states, the Atlas found, most notably in Piauí, Amapá, and Roraima. 

In Piauí, homicides grew by almost 50%, from 16.3 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012 to 24.1 in 2022. In Amapá and Roraima, the rise in murders was around 15%.

These states, along with several others in the country’s north and northeast, bore the brunt of a war fought between 2016 and 2018 by some of the country’s most important criminal organizations –the PCC and the CV– and their regional allies for control over drug trafficking routes. Before the conflict, the PCC and the CV had been refrained from fighting one another. That non-aggression pact ended abruptly in October 2016 following a prison massacre in Roraima.

For its part, the Atlas recorded a total of 4,002 homicides in Piauí, Amapá and Roraima combined between 2016 and 2018. The PCC and the CV reinstated their non-aggression pact in 2018, but the three states did not record a relevant drop in the number of homicides in the ensuing three years. Between 2019 and 2021, Piauí, Amapá and Roraima registered 3,948 homicides.

The high number of homicides after the truce between the PCC and the CV reflects the expansion and proliferation of regional factions in the North and Northeast. These groups kept fighting over smaller trafficking routes and for control over municipalities.

“These smaller narcotrafficking conflicts are the elements that currently accentuate the number of homicides in Brazil”, Daniel Cerqueira, the coordinator of the Atlas of Violence, told InSight Crime.  

Nonetheless, disputes over drug trafficking routes continue to impact northern Brazil.

In 2022, Amazonas had one of the country’s highest homicide rates, at 42.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. The Solimões and Amazon rivers, which traverse the state, are both used to transport drugs, particularly cocaine, from Peru and Colombia across the country and toward international ports.

SEE ALSO: DataInSights: What Is Behind Rising Violence in Bahia, Brazil?

Amazonas state is also home to more than 10 rival criminal groups. The most powerful are the Family of the North (Família do Norte – FDN) and the Cartel of the North (Cartel do Norte), but both the PCC and the CV strengthened their operations in the state over the last decade.

Manaus, the state capital, has a seaport and an airport that have become vital for sending drugs to the southeastern region of the country. The city, which has two million inhabitants, was Brazil’s third-most violent capital in 2022, with a homicide rate of 55.7 per 100,000.

Prohibitionist Drug Policies

Through an analysis of the drug problem in Brazil, the Atlas’ authors draw a direct line from hard-line drug policies to violence. 

“Drug prohibition generates high social and economic costs,” they write. “Chief among them is the loss of thousands of human lives due to violence.”

For the authors, among the reasons for this “causal” connection is mass incarceration. Brazil’s strict drug prohibition policies led to widespread arrests, most of whom were small-time drug dealers or in possession of minor quantities of narcotics. The overcrowding that followed aided the growth of criminal organizations, including those at the heart of the violence over the last decade.

“Mass incarceration causes the state to lose control and capacity, so it can no longer enforce the law. The result is that the inmates are not re-socialized after leaving prison,” Cerqueira explained.

The stigma surrounding people who have been in prison also hinders the possibility of their reintegrating into society, so former inmates often feel the need to continue in crime to support themselves financially after getting out of prison, he added. 

New inmates, often first-time offenders, may join gangs for self-protection whilst behind bars, or are coerced into becoming members under the threat of violence. As a result, mass incarceration has delivered non-violent inmates into the hands of the PCC and the CV, which have regularly fought behind prison walls and carried out brutal prison massacres.

“There’s a big chance that people arrested for small thefts – a chicken thief, a drug user, a small-time trafficker – will join a gang to avoid being killed, and end up in a lifetime of involvement with that group,” Cerqueira, the coordinator of the Atlas of Violence, told InSight Crime.

Prisons have also become epicenters of criminal activity and safe havens from which criminal groups can strategize and exert social and economic control over thousands of inmates and ex-inmates. 

However, things may be changing in Brazil. In a major turn, a week after the Atlas report was published, the nation’s top court decriminalized possession of up to 40 grams of marijuana for personal use, which means that the number of people arrested for personal possession of the drug could drop substantially.

According to the Atlas, over 42,600 fewer people would have been in prison in 2022 if the law had allowed the possession of up to 25 grams of marijuana at the time of their arrest.

PCC Hegemony

In what is also an oft-disputed claim, Cerqueira said the PCC’s criminal dominance in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, contributed to a substantial drop in violence. The Atlas added that security policies increased the accountability of police across the state of São Paulo and also helped to reduce violence in the region. 

The report relates the drop in homicides in São Paulo to the near-total control that the PCC has in the state capital, which, with close to 12.5 million people, is one of the largest cities in the world. The state recorded one of the biggest drops in homicide rates in the country between 2012 and 2022.  

SEE ALSO: Brazil Gangs Behind Surging Violence on Colombia, Peru Tri-Border

Cerqueira, however, said the PCC’s grip on São Paulo is not the only reason for the decrease in murders. He noted a change in local security policy models.

“A drop in the state of São Paulo’s homicide rate began to be recorded in 1999, while the PCC gained strength in the mid-2000s, around 2006,” Cerqueira told InSight Crime. The downward trend in homicides in São Paulo state began before PCC’s monopoly and extended to the period between 2012 and 2022, he explained.

These changes began in the early 2000s in São Paulo, when police poured money into intelligence resources, including the implementation of body cameras used by police officers in 2019. This policy has reportedly reduced killings committed by the police in the state. 

Such policing measures have been expanded to other states, Cerqueira said. Goiás and the Distrito Federal, where the country’s capital, Brasilia, is located, began implementing security policies focused on enhancing police intelligence during the period covered by the Atlas report, with projects to analyze criminal links and deterrence-focused initiatives. 

For the Atlas, the policies were noteworthy. Together with São Paulo, these two states recorded the biggest drops in homicide rates in the country between 2012 and 2022.

Feature image: Military police occupy the Jacarezinho favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. Credit: AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo

The post What a Decade of Data Tells Us About Organized Crime in Brazil appeared first on InSight Crime.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its annual drug report, highlighting the manifold destruction caused by a surging cocaine industry.

The World Drug Report 2024, published June 26, takes a look at global data over recent years to analyze the trends around illicit substances. It focuses on broader global trends, especially concerning the cultivation of crops and the production of synthetic drugs, while also examining the impact the illicit drug industry has on society and institutions.

“The drug problem is expanding both from the use side and from the supply side. There is more production, more trafficking, and also complexity, so more substances,” Angela Me, the UNODC’s head of research, told InSight Crime.

SEE ALSO: South America’s Cocaine Supply Boom Shows Up in European Wastewater Analysis

The report details the rise of cocaine production and its devastating effects on populations and the environment. Drug-related destruction is a global phenomenon, and in Latin America, it is often the young that are most affected.

Drug trafficking continues to expand globally, while consumption of drugs is rising. While opium production is falling, other drugs may be taking its place, as organized crime groups continue to explore novel illicit industries. 

Here, InSight Crime breaks down the most important findings for Latin American organized crime.

Cocaine Production Wreaks Violence and Environmental Destruction

Drug trafficking groups have violently expanded amid historic levels of cocaine production, wreaking ecological havoc and expanding into other criminal economies.

Production of cocaine and the growing of coca bush have been steadily rising for decades, but 2022 saw a dramatic uptick. The report estimates that 2,757 tons of cocaine were produced globally in 2022, a 20% increase from the year before, and three times as much as was made nearly a decade ago. These volumes of cocaine were propelled by 355,000 hectares of coca bush cultivated in 2022, up 21% in one year.

Booming cocaine production has led to a rise in violence and displacements in Colombia, the world’s number one cocaine exporter. The country’s Pacific region has been particularly affected as armed groups wage war over drug trafficking.

But no country has suffered the impact of the cocaine boom as much as Ecuador. There, local gangs have been turbocharged by the inflow of cocaine and now work with Colombian, Mexican, and Balkan organizations to move the drug along Ecuador’s waterways and to its international ports. As conflict over the routes has worsened, homicides have soared, politicians and political candidates have been assassinated, and the country has fallen into a near-permanent state of emergency. 

In the Caribbean, where island nations are used as a stopping point to move cocaine to North America and Europe, local gangs have unleashed fighting to establish and defend their territory, and homicides have risen.

As cocaine has traveled across oceans, killings have followed. 

“Startling levels of violence associated with cocaine trafficking and competition between criminal groups and gangs are affecting Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as countries in Western Europe,” the report stated.

Routes between South America and Europe have become well established, with Ecuador, the Southern Cone, and Brazil being the major exit hubs. The North Sea has become the primary entry point, the report found. 

The rise in cocaine production is also fuelling the destruction of the environment. In Bolivia, traffickers continue to expand, moving into the Amazon, and contributing to deforestation. And on the Peru-Colombia-Brazil border, increased coca cultivation has spurred illegal deforestation, timber trafficking, and illegal gold mining.

“There are three border areas [in South America] that have been captured by organized crime. And it’s not only drugs. The issue is that they enter with drugs and then they start environmental crime,” said Me.

Drug Trade Hits Latin American Youth

Consumption of drugs is increasingly affecting youth in Latin America, the report found.

Central America and the Caribbean is the region with the highest proportion of under 18s seeking treatment for drug addiction, with South American a close second.

“Drug use disorders at a young age are particularly concerning because they can lead to a vicious circle involving lower educational attainment and impaired chances of social reintegration,” the report said.

Organized crime groups can use drugs to create a cycle, selling drugs to make money, and recruiting those that become addicted, according to the report. 

“We cannot think about the drug problem without thinking about organized crime more holistically,” Me explained. “The cycle is not just about drugs – it’s about organized crime.”

Drug addiction in the region has been exploited by organized crime groups. In Mexico, addiction to synthetic drugs, like methamphetamine, is on the rise, hitting the country’s youth particularly hard. Organized crime groups have recruited from rehabilitation centers, exploiting the state’s incapacity to turn patients into lookouts, dealers, and killers.

Opium Falls but Synthetics Are on the Rise

A ban on opium in Afghanistan has forced traffickers to dip into stockpiles to move heroin, but new synthetic opiates are emerging. 

The cultivation of opium, the base ingredient for heroin, has plummeted by 95% in Afghanistan, the world’s major opium supplier, following an April 2022 ban by the Taliban. Opium production dropped 70% around the world between 2022 and 2023. Previous reports by the UNODC estimated that Afghanistan produced up to 88% of the world’s opium. 

Though production is down, opium seizures remain steady, indicating that traffickers are dipping into stockpiles to make up for the decrease. If heroin supply dries up, synthetic drugs may fill the demand in the world’s major markets, including the United States and Europe.

SEE ALSO: How Precursor Chemicals Sustain Mexico’s Synthetic Drug Trade

“The production of synthetic opioids can be cheaper, faster, and more profitable than heroin and can open up opportunities to new groups without links to the Balkan route or lead old groups to diversify and modify their supply chains,” said the report. 

Synthetic opioids have decimated North America, with the hyper-potent drug, fentanyl, largely replacing heroin. A new, even stronger group of synthetic opiates, nitazenes, are also showing up around the world, according to the UNODC. 

Methamphetamine is also on the rise, with traffickers potentially shifting to new drugs to replace their profits from heroin. In February, Andrew Cunningham of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) told InSight Crime that methamphetamine and other synthetic cathinone stimulants could be replacements for heroin among Europe’s users should the supply of the drug run dry.

Feature image: The headquarters of the UNODC in Vienna, Austria. Credit: UNODC

The post Cocaine Surge Fuels Violence as Opium Falls: UN Drug Report 2024 appeared first on InSight Crime.

The dissident guerrilla group known as the Second Marquetalia has entered peace negotiations with the government of Colombia, and appears poised to strike a deal due to its weakened condition.

On June 24, representatives from the Second Marquetalia (Segunda Marquetalia) and the Colombian government met in Caracas, Venezuela to begin peace talks under Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace (Paz Total) strategy. The initiative aims to persuade the country’s main armed organizations to put down their weapons in a series of parallel negotiations.

The Second Marquetalia, created by former commanders of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), is the third prominent criminal organization to agree to dialogue, following the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and another ex-FARC faction called the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC). 

SEE ALSO: What Is Behind Increased Violence in Colombia?

Both the armed group and the government have strong incentives to quickly forge a peace agreement. The Second Marquetalia is in dire straits, having lost multiple leaders in the last few years. And Petro’s government is eager to show progress on its Total Peace initiative, as it reaches the halfway mark of its four-year term while criminal groups grow stronger and violence has increased in parts of the country.

As negotiations begin, InSight Crime looks at three reasons why they may succeed.

Last Chance for Second Marquetalia Leaders

After Petro took office in 2022, he recognized the Second Marquetalia as a political organization, opening the door for peace talks with the group. But Petro’s successor may not accept this designation, adding a sense of urgency to the negotiations.

The Second Marquetalia’s political standing was unclear at the beginning of Petro’s term. The group was founded in 2019 by former FARC commanders who had chosen to abandon the historic 2016 peace agreement signed during the administration of former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. In abandoning the deal, the leaders lost the privileges that came with it, including seats in Congress, and political recognition. 

Petro’s decision to recognize the group as a political actor was condemned, including from those who brokered the 2016 peace agreement.

Humberto de la Calle, a senator who was the head of the government delegation to the FARC peace accords, pointed out that the Second Marquetalia’s members had abandoned peace talks once before.

“They had their chance … Who can guarantee [the group] will not break [its] word again?” he said in a video published on his X account.

A peace treaty with Petro may therefore represent the Second Marquetalia’s last opportunity to receive the benefits of voluntary disarmament, including lenient prison sentences. 

“Márquez and those who laid down their arms earlier are probably not going to get a government that treats them any better. In other words, if they want to get the best possible deal, now is the time,” Kyle Johnson, co-founder of the Conflict Responses Foundation (CORE), a think-tank specializing in conflict and peace building in Colombia, told InSight Crime. 

An Off Ramp From an Unwinnable War

The Second Marquetalia may be inclined to sign an agreement due to its militarily weakened state.

In 2021, the Second Marquetalia fought a war over drug routes against the ex-FARC mafia’s 10th Front and the ELN on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. The conflict was taxing for the Second Marquetalia, and it has yet to fully recover.

During that period, Colombia’s security forces and rival groups killed most of the organization’s top leaders, including Seuxis Pausías Hernández, alias “Jesús Santrich,” Henry Castellanos Garzón alias “Romaña,” and Hernán Darío Velásquez, alias, “El Paisa.” The Second Marquetalia is now led by Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez,” who recently returned to public life almost a year after being reported dead, though he seems to be in poor health. This loss of leadership rendered large parts of the organization inoperative.

SEE ALSO: From Total to Partial Peace: Colombia’s Talks With Crime Groups Fragment

Today, the Second Marquetalia’s territorial power is restricted to a few strongholds along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and in southwestern Colombian states like Nariño, Cauca, and Putumayo. 

But even in these regions, it does not have the military capacity to act on its own. The group has been forced to form alliances with stronger local organizations, such as the ELN and the Border Command (Comandos de la Frontera). 

This is hardly a promising future for Second Marquetalia, and Total Peace may be its last option to prevent a total military defeat.

Moderates Hold Sway

The death of most of the hard-line founders of the Second Marquetalia elevates the voices of mid-level commanders, who are more open to negotiating. 

Santrich, Romaña, and El Paisa, the more radical voices in the group’s leadership, had little incentive to engage in peace talks, having lost any privileges they received from the 2016 peace deal when they abandoned it.

They were also targets of authorities both in Colombia and outside. For example, prior to his death, Santrich was charged with drug trafficking crimes by the United States. 

But Márquez, the sole surviving founder of the group, has shown a willingness to negotiate in the past. He was part of an effort to demobilize the FARC in the 1980s, when parts of the organization, including Márquez, split off and formed part of a political party. The effort ended in tragedy, as the military and paramilitary groups massacred party members by the thousands, and the FARC returned in full to the battlefield.

Now, in frail health, Márquez may be more prepared than ever to make a deal.

Additionally, other commanders of the Second Marquetalia have expressed their willingness to take part in negotiations.

For example, Giovanny Andrés Rojas, alias “Araña,” leader of the Border Command, one of the Second Marquetalia’s strongest allies, said his group would be willing to lay down their arms in exchange for “amnesty, forgiveness, and forgetting.” His stance was supported several by other commanders. 

Feature image: Peace talks between the Second Marquetalia and the Colombian government in Caracas, Venezuela. Credit: Associated Press.

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