2024-02-15 17:15:12
A wave of violence linked to drug gangs has transformed Ecuador from a peaceful tourist destination to a key player in the global narcotics trade.
In the first days of January, the Andean country experienced the live kidnapping of television journalists at gunpoint, a prosecutor shot dead, the takeover of a hospital, bomb threats and prison staff taken hostage by inmates after a notorious criminal disappeared from his cell.
President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency and told the BBC that the nation was “fighting every day not to become a narco-state.”
But how is this country linked to the multimillion-dollar drug business that extends throughout the world?
The price of 1 kg of cocaine can be as low as US$2,000 in Colombia, according to estimates by UN experts.
But the price increases considerably the further you go from the origin: that same kilogram can be worth more than US$220,000 in Australia, for example.
As with any business, the drug market revolves around profits, says Aileen Teague, a drug policy expert at Texas A&M University in the United States.
It is also important to recognize that «in some areas, these illicit markets are intertwined with the State“, Add.
“As Ecuador demonstrates, this intertwining creates unexpected outcomes when it comes to governance and public safety,” Teague concludes.
Drugs produced in Latin America do not tend to travel directly to their main consumer markets in North America and Europe and, to win the cat and mouse game with border control authorities, smuggling routes through Africa are have become an important piece of the distribution puzzle.
West African nations They are a crucial transit point for cocaine shipments heading to Europe.
Shipments travel across the Atlantic on planes, submarines and small fishing boats covered in blue tarps for camouflage, designed to evade satellite surveillance.
“African countries are strategic for drug distribution and many have been penetrated by organized crime,” explains Antonio María Costa, former executive director of the UNODC.
«The money from drug trafficking “It is perverting the economy and rotting society.”
Guinea-Bissau, one of the world’s poorest nations, was described by the United States and the UN as Africa’s first narco-state in the early 2000s.
There were politicians accused of receiving money from criminals and helping to protect drug trafficking.
It is suspected that drug money also circulates among security forces.
In 2022, the President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, accused drug traffickers of financing a coup attempt.
And 13 years earlier, the assassination of the president of Guinea-Bissau, Joao Bernardo Vieira, by his own soldiers, became known as the “cocaine coup” and there was talk of a power struggle for control of the drug money that entered the country.
In nearby Mali, drug trafficking coexists with armed insurgent groups operating in the north of the country.
Mali’s location places it in the corridor that connects West Africa with the Mediterranean and Europe.
UN data shows that the amount of cocaine seized by authorities in the region increased from 13 kg per year between 2015 and 2020 to 863 kg in 2022.
“Drug trafficking is a great source of income for armed groups,” says Antonio María Costa, former director of the UNODC.
“Drugs are addictive not only because of their use,” he adds, “but also because of the incredible profits they generate for those who traffic them.
Seizures increased even after the arrest and sentencing of Africa’s most famous drug trafficker, El Hadj Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim, known as “El Maliense”, in 2019.
Ibrahim, currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in Morocco, comes from the Bedouin desert lands of northern Mali.
According to Jeune Afrique magazine, the “Escobar of the Sahara” began his business career selling second-hand European cars in Africa, which gave him knowledge of trade routes, customs and other logistical aspects.
After entering the gold market, he became involved in the transatlantic cocaine trade and, at the time of his arrest, the Malian allegedly owned properties in several countries: Brazil, Russia and Morocco, to name a few.
East africa It also plays a role in the global drug trade.
Ports such as Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mombasa in Kenya are transit points for drugs sent to South and East Asia.
Crucially, they also act as entry points for heroin, amphetamines and cannabis that flow in the opposite direction, according to the UNODC.
Additionally, the region is home to key international airports in Nairobi and Addis Ababa.
Authorities are concerned by evidence that illicit drug use is increasing on the continent.
In fact, the UNODC estimates that 10% of people in West and Central Africa used cannabis in 2021. Globally, the prevalence is 4%.
Meanwhile, in Asia, UNODC has noted that the synthetic drug trade has flourished since the Covid-19 pandemic, basing its assessment on drug seizures, arrests and availability on the streets.
The so-called Golden Triangle, a remote jungle area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet, remains one of the world’s main centers for synthetic drugs and heroin.
In 2023, the UN revealed that Myanmar had become the world’s largest producer of opium, the key ingredient in heroin, surpassing Afghanistan, whose poppy crops have declined since the Taliban’s return to power.
For decades, drug proceeds have financed insurgent groups fighting the government in Myanmar and last year, in the midst of a civil war, cultivation increased.
One of the most infamous groups associated with the Golden Triangle is Sam Gor, an Asian gang syndicate. In 2018, the UNODC estimated that Sam Gor earned at least $8 billion a year from his methamphetamine business alone.
Australian police estimate it is responsible for up to 70% of the drugs entering Australia.
They claimed the group smuggled huge quantities of drugs, particularly methamphetamine, but also heroin and ketamine, into the country in packets of tea.
In 2021, authorities in the Netherlands arrested the man accused of being the head of the syndicate, Chinese-Canadian businessman Tse Chi Lop, nicknamed “El Chapo of Asia.”
Tse Chi Lop was extradited to Australia in December 2022, where he still awaits trial. He denies the charges.
“Criminal groups in Asia operate differently than in Latin America,” says Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on Asian drug trafficking at the US-based Brookings Institution.
«The countries of the region [Asia] “They often have a brutal approach to drugs, so these groups behave in a more silent way,” he adds, explaining that kingpins tend to be less conspicuous and are willing to keep their identities out of the public eye.
Felbab-Brown is also one of the voices that describe Syria as a narco-state, due to the production and distribution of Captagon, an illegal stimulant whose low street price earned it the nickname “poor man’s cocaine.”
The drug is mainly consumed in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia.
Syria, mired in civil war since 2011, is believed to be the world’s largest producer of Captagon and The drug seems to have become a source of income for the isolated regime.
According to Felbab-Brown, Captagon’s sales in the Middle East amount to $5 billion a year and “a large portion” of this turnover is used to “prop up the Assad regime.”
A joint investigation by BBC News Arabic and investigative journalism network OCCRP, published in June 2023, found “direct links between the Captagon trade and prominent members of the Syrian Armed Forces and the family of President Bashar al-Assad.”
Syria’s government did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment. However, he has previously denied any involvement in drug trafficking.
China and fentanyl
The last country that must be mentioned is China. The United States has accused companies and individuals of producing chemicals used to make fentanyl, a powerful and often deadly synthetic opioid.
U.S. officials say the chemicals are being shipped to Mexico, where fentanyl is produced before it is shipped to the United States for distribution.
Beijing has said that “there is no such thing as illegal trafficking of fentanyl” from China to America and blames American users for the high number of deaths related to it.
Stopping the production of these chemicals is complicated, says Vanda Felbab-Brown, because “it is carried out almost at the family level and not at the level of large criminal organizations.”
“Smuggling of these substances is cheap and therefore does not generate anywhere near the same money compared to methamphetamine smuggling, which in Asia is dominated by major organized crime.”
However, US authorities say they have found evidence that Chinese chemical companies They offer technical assistance to Mexican cartels in their fentanyl production.
In April last year, a New York court charged four Chinese nationals in absentia with fentanyl smuggling.
One of the accused, businessman Kun Jiang, is on the United States DEA’s most wanted list.