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Thursday, April 11, 2024

Why Drug Cartels Are Expanding to Asia

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat


As cocaine flows to remoter markets, transnational illicit traffic poses a global risk.


Soldiers stand guard beside seized drugs on the outskirts of Islamabad in Nov. 2021.



For a rising number of Latin American drug cartels, being global is nowadays a “do-or-die” proposition. Hemmed in by the oversaturation of the U.S. market and the increasing preference of U.S. consumers for synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, these organizations have eagerly expanded their cocaine smuggling to Europe in recent years. 

Now, they are looking for new markets, and Asia is the name of the game.

After a remarkable increase in drug production over the last decade to a record level of almost 2,000 tons of pure cocaine per year, drug lords are betting on China, India and South Korea’s markets. 

The output increase is taking place thanks to recent investments in technology to raise coca bushes’ productivity and the expansion of the cultivation area to non-traditional countries in Latin America, the sole producer of all the cocaine sold worldwide.
 


The push for higher production and market expansion has brought an increase in drug-trafficking-related violence to the region. In January, gangs kidnapped correctional officers and invaded a TV station in Guayaquil, Ecuador, representing an unprecedented wave of drug-related violence in a nation that not long ago was a peaceful Andean destination.

It’s not a mere coincidence that the leading Mexican gangs, the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG, have Ecuador as their latest and most prominent battlefield, as both are engaged in fierce competition to control key territories and markets in the Western Hemisphere and beyond. 

Both organizations have set their sights on Asia since getting local prominence, but the Sinaloa Cartel has an early advantage in this expansion. According to some scholars, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the incarcerated drug lord enduring a life sentence in Florence, Colorado, created import and export networks in Asia in the early 2000s, liaising its thriving group with Chinese gangs, including 14K and Sun Yee On, in Hong Kong.



Latin American political leaders gathered in Cali, Colombia, last September to address new policies on drug trafficking, and the presidents of Colombia and Mexico urged the creation of a new international anti-drug policy. Colombia’s Gustavo Petro went further and said that the militarized approach to combat the illicit trade, known as the war on drugs, has failed. It’s estimated that close to 6% of the global population uses illegal drugs



As the region’s leadership struggles to find the best policy to fight drug trafficking, increasing commercial ties are setting the stage for a new reality. Trade relations between Latin American and Asian countries have made transportation faster, cheaper and permeable to illicit activity. Countries like Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Nicaragua and Costa Rica have signed free trade agreements with China, adding to the increasing trade between China and Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the largest cocaine-producing countries in the world.)

The relevance of China and India

South America’s cocaine production is flooding the region’s countries, and the ports of San Antonio (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay) have gained importance as the cocaine departs from there to Europe, Oceania and Asian markets. Air routes are also crucial since they can quickly respond to a concrete demand. 

In that case, mules (people carrying 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 being developed in Asia. 

Although very little data is available regarding China’s seizures of cocaine, the country has become a transshipment point for cocaine coming from Latin America, according to the Global Organized Crime Index. China is the world’s biggest hub for container movement, facilitating easy access and cheap transportation for licit and illicit goods. Rising drug seizures in Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China seem to prove this trend. 




In the case of India, even though the domestic market remains tiny, cocaine smuggling has risen 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 numbers are not high enough, concerns have been raised, particularly around container movement.

South Korea has become a significant hub of cocaine going to 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 (ranking sixth in global importance), considering the number of containers moved. Japan, on the other hand, remains largely outside the worldwide cocaine market—despite reports in some quarters to the contrary.

How the landscape is changing

While the U.S. and Brazil are still the most important cocaine consumers worldwide, the cocaine market seems to be displacing geographically from the Americas to Europe. According to the European Drug Report 2023, close to 2.3 million 15- to 34-year-olds (2.3% of this age group) used cocaine. 

The report highlights that after cannabis, cocaine is the second most used illicit drug in Europe, although prevalence levels and patterns of use differ considerably between countries. Even though the current cocaine market has become Eurocentric, that trend may change in the years to come, as cocaine prices in Asia have recently skyrocketed.

New markets for drug consumption are constantly emerging thanks to criminal organizations’ bid to stimulate demand for the extra cocaine produced every year (and thereby increase their profits). Now, Asian markets are assuming a more significant role. Many of these countries are already involved in global drug markets, but in a different manner: 

Asia, and particularly China and India, provides precursor chemicals used to produce drugs in the Americas, as well as fentanyl itself.

The new reality raises the question of whether governments will fight the development of criminal organizations separately or cooperate against this rising transnational threat. 

Latin American countries can cooperate with Asian countries, sharing the know-how they have gained during the last decade and the cooperation mechanisms they have developed, for example, with Europe. The critical question is whether the political will to do so exists.



Americas Quarterly

25 comments:

  1. Asia is 4.7 billion people. It may already be the largest overall drug market. Google Tse Chi Lop to get an idea of the size of one Asian narco group.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Yakuza is #1

      Delete
    2. Tse chi lop is the goat

      Delete
    3. Here in the Philippines Shabu/Crystal meth is going $13k USD per kilo from Nigerians not pure from The Triads can go over $17k USD per kilo Pure. Import real kush $300 USD plus or about $20 per gram. Pure cocaine OZ for almost $3k USD.

      Delete
    4. 9:33. You have never bought pure or not pure in those volumes.

      You have no idea what they actually go for

      Delete
    5. Hard to take anyone seriously who's name is Lop

      Delete
    6. 654 I'm from Cali been able to get scale paste smelling like vinegar for over decade

      Delete
    7. 654 blue window $4500 a P few years back and right now pure is $1200 a p smelling like granny perfume in Southern CA You grow up with the Mexicans and Paisa not hard to get shit looking exactly same packaging like Nat Geo borderwars

      Delete
  2. Investigate Unlimit receive payments from LATAM, APAC, Africa, Europe

    ReplyDelete
  3. There’s a video of Sinaloa mobsters partying with Chinese mobsters it’s old from around 2014 anyone remember seeing it ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No but it probably involved little boys if CDs was involved

      Delete
  4. At the rate they are killing USA users of fentanyl, they won’t have any customers left.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You think the dealers care a rats ass.
      Those that died to overdoses, will be replaced by more addicts.
      Also that way there is more room for imagrants coming from Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, El Salvador, Honduras. We don't want USA to get crowded.

      Delete
    2. According to the climate experts, the USA is running out of drinking water so no one is going to want to come to the USA! Everyone will be fleeing!

      Delete
  5. Sinaloa was setting up mega meth labs in the Philippines around 2016. Only reason they got busted was cause the Mexicans were throwing around crazy money at the cock fights. Also the Mexican chef from Sinaloa who got busted with coke too. But let’s see if fenty starts flooding the Manila streets.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Probably not as nobody out of Sinaloa is stupid enough to push that crap 1043 IAG= dumbest cartel leader in history.

      Delete
  6. Antarctica Market untapped 😅

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Annuaki have Antarctica on lock bro.

      Delete
  7. 6:44
    WRONG!
    cartel de los penguinos got Antarctica locked down
    🐧

    ReplyDelete
  8. The situation in Japan with illegal drugs is more complicated than anyone really appreciates, despite it being true that rates of use are probably lower, Japan has these issues around "face" and public acknowledgement of behavior that's considered disgraceful, and drug crime is one of those things. There's obviously a recreational drug market, a growing problem with youth drug use, a growing foreign worker population from the Philippines, China, India, Southeast Asia, other places with very high rates of use and triads crime organizations involved in the drug trade. The major "Yakuza" clans have officially forbidden drug distribution, but the "Yakuza" as regulators of street crime today is much less of a reality than 20 years ago before government suppression efforts. The domestic mafias aren't in a position to regulate the foreign youth gangs which are visible everywhere in the major cities. I would say there are fewer Japanese involved but probably a dozen different foreign countries represented there in drug related street crime. They'll probably be buying cocaine from the Dutch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Japan also has a lot of exposure to Brazil and crime in Brazil is institutional and opaque to outside, no extradition haven.

      Delete
  9. 대한민국 경찰 검찰들도 대한민국이 주요 마약 유통 통로인거 잘알고있습니다. 지난 5년동안 2100000000$ 적발하였습니다 그럼에도 불구하고 배를 통해 마약이 들어오고있습니다. 대한민국은 1970~80년대에 범죄와의 전쟁으로 마피아들을 전원 소탕한 마약청정국가였습니다만 2020년대부터 마약이 몰래유통되고있고 청소년들도 마약하는 뉴스를 가끔씩 볼수있습니다. 우리는 중국를 의심하고 있습니다 대한민국에서 마약복용은 3~10년 감옥이고 마약유통은 5~15년 감옥입니다

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes your right during the Vietnam war their was marijuana usage, yes it was less back then, but now the cost of living has skyrocketed all over.
      I am glad to hear, you don't live in North Korea, that president is worse than Obrador . He gets his kicks scaring the US with his rockets.

      Delete
  10. Unfortunately, the Japanese Yakuza seems to be working with CJNG. An Inagawa-kai member was recently arrested.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Japan is putting a lot of effort into border control measures, and as an island nation, I think it is more difficult for illegal drugs to enter the country than in other countries.

    ReplyDelete

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