For a growing number of Latin American drug cartels, going global is today a “life or death” situation. Cornered by the oversaturation of the US market and the growing preference of its consumers for synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, these criminal organizations have greedily expanded their cocaine smuggling to Europe in recent years. And now, they are looking for new markets, and Asia is the name at stake.
After a notable increase in drug production in the last decade to reach a record level of almost 2,000 tons of pure cocaine per year, drug lords are betting on the markets of China, India and South Korea. The increase in production is occurring thanks to recent investments in technology to increase the productivity of coca bushes and the expansion of the cultivation area to non-traditional countries in Latin America, the only producer of all the cocaine sold in the world.
Increased production and market expansion has brought with it an increase in drug-related violence in the region. In January, gangs kidnapped prison officials and invaded a television station in Guayaquil, Ecuador. This represents an unprecedented wave of violence in a nation that not long ago was a peaceful Andean destination.
It is not a mere coincidence that the main Mexican gangs, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), have Ecuador as their latest and most prominent battlefield, since both are immersed in a fierce competition to control territories. and key markets in the Western Hemisphere and beyond. Both organizations have set their sights on Asia since rising to local prominence, but the Sinaloa Cartel has a head start in this expansion.
According to some scholars, Joaquín, 'El Chapo,' Guzmán, the imprisoned drug trafficker serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado, created import-export networks in Asia in the early 2000s, linking his prosperous group to Chinese gangs , like 14K and Sun Yee On, in Hong Kong.
In September, the region's political leaders met in Cali to discuss new drug trafficking policies, and the presidents of Colombia and Mexico urged the creation of a new international anti-drug policy. Gustavo Petro went further and stated that the military approach to combating illicit trafficking, known as the war on drugs, has failed. It is estimated that about 6 percent of the world's population uses illegal drugs.
As leaders in the region struggle to find the best way to combat drug trafficking, increased trade ties are setting the stage for a new reality.
Illegal trade and drugs
Trade relations between Latin American and Asian countries have made transportation faster, cheaper and more permeable to illicit activity. Countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Nicaragua and Costa Rica have signed free trade agreements with China, adding to the growing trade between China and Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the largest cocaine producing countries in the world).
Cocaine production in South America is flooding the countries of the region, and the ports of San Antonio (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay) have become important, since cocaine leaves there for Europe, Oceania and Asian markets.
Air routes are also crucial as they can respond quickly to a specific demand. In that case, mules (people who carry cocaine in their stomachs) are being used to traffic cocaine from South America (from Brazil, in many cases) to Europe and East Africa and from there to Asia. China and India are critical to understanding how the cocaine market is developing in Asia.
Although very little data is available on cocaine seizures in China, the country has become a transshipment point for cocaine from Latin America, according to the Global Organized Crime Index.
China is the world's largest container movement center, facilitating access and cheap transportation of licit and illicit goods. The increase in drug seizures in Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China appears to demonstrate this trend.
In the case of India, although the domestic market remains tiny, cocaine smuggling has increased in recent years, driven by tourism, as criminal organizations use the Internet for sales, payments and distribution. According to official data, cocaine seizures have increased dramatically, and even when the numbers are not high enough, concerns have been raised, especially around the movement of containers.
Korea and Japan
South Korea has become a major distribution center for cocaine destined for China, Oceania and other parts of Asia. The port of Busan plays an essential role in the arrival of cocaine from Latin America, given its crucial position in Northeast Asia (it ranks sixth in global importance), taking into account the number of containers moved. Japan, on the other hand, remains largely on the sidelines of the global cocaine market, despite reports from some quarters to the contrary.
Although the US and Brazil remain the largest consumers of cocaine worldwide, the cocaine market appears to be shifting geographically from the Americas to Europe. According to the European Drug Report 2023, around 2.3 million young people aged 15 to 34 (2.3% of this age group) used cocaine. The report highlights that, after cannabis, cocaine is the second most widely used illicit drug in Europe, although prevalence levels and consumption patterns differ considerably from country to country.
Although the current cocaine market has become Eurocentric, that trend may change in the coming years, as cocaine prices in Asia have recently skyrocketed.
New markets for drug consumption are constantly emerging thanks to the efforts of criminal organizations to stimulate demand for the extra cocaine produced each year (and thus increase their profits). Now, Asian markets are taking on a more significant role. Many of these countries already participate in global drug markets, but in different ways: Asia, and in particular China and India, supplies chemical precursors used to produce drugs in America, such as fentanyl.
The new reality raises the question of whether governments will fight separately against the development of criminal organizations or cooperate against this growing transnational threat. Latin American countries can cooperate with Asian countries, sharing the knowledge they have acquired over the last decade and the cooperation mechanisms they have developed, for example, with Europe. The critical question is whether the political will exists to do so.
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