- InSight Crime has analysed the 2016 EU Drug Markets Report and reported that the Caribbean is becoming a popular drug route for traffickers to Europe due to stronger interdiction in Central America and Mexico. In addition, the article has reported the growing use of shipping containers to transport cocaine.
- The commander of Colombia’s Pacific naval forces, Rear Admiral Pablo Guevara, has suggested a growth in cocaine seizures and captured seven narco-submarines along Colombia’s Pacific Coast due to the use of technology and intelligence. Nevertheless, he declared that illicit activity across the region has also increased.
- Guatemalan officials have declared that drug traffickers are burning down forests along the border with Mexico and Belize to make clandestine hideouts for planes trafficking cocaine from South America to the United States.
- According to Michael Braun, former DEA operations chief, Hezbollah is allegedly trafficking large amounts of cocaine from South America to Europe through a complex money laundering scheme to finance terrorism.
- Authorities from Bolivia’s special anti-narcotic force (Fuerza Especial de Lucha contra el Narcotrafico) have reportedly found over a thousand clandestine landing strips along the country’s border with Peru and Brazil in the last three years. The use of the air bridge to drug traffickers is for strategic purposes in order to meet the levels of the demand for cocaine in Europe.
