US authorities have said recent missile strikes against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean — and now in the Pacific — are targeting “cartels” and “narco-terrorists.” But the reality of these organizations is that they are dispersed networks that resemble most legal global supply chains, making the targeted battle against them that much harder.
Unlike a cartel — which, strictly defined, is a group of producers that use their control over the supply chain to limit competition and set prices in a given market — there is no single organization that controls the supply chain of any drug from cultivation to street-level sales.
What exists instead are decentralized networks of suppliers, producers, transporters, brokers, and traffickers, who each play a distinct role. These specialists have mastered their segment of the narcotics pipeline, whether producing drugs in remote labs, transporting them across jungles or deserts, or smuggling them through container ports bound for destinations around the world.
To see how this works in practice, look at Colombia, which still produces the vast majority of the world’s cocaine. Farmers in different regions grow coca, the plant used to make the infamous white powder, or cocaine hydrochloride, at times under threat from criminal groups. These farmers deal with brokers or independent buyers who buy their coca paste to sell to larger criminal groups.
Colombia is a jigsaw puzzle of criminal groups, the result of decades of fragmentation that began with the fall of the Medellín and Cali cartels. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) filled the vacuum these groups left behind, controlling coca-growing regions and taxing production to fund their war against the Colombian government. But after the FARC’s 2016 demobilization, that control splintered again, creating the fractured criminal landscape that persists today.
Currently the three most important actors in the supply of cocaine are the Gulf Clan, a criminal federation with roots in Colombia’s right-wing paramilitaries that demobilized in the mid-2000s, which controls most of the country’s Caribbean coast; the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), Colombia’s last remaining Marxist guerrilla group, which dominates the border with Venezuela and operates inside that country as well; and dissidents of the now-demobilized FARC, who have recruited new members and spread across parts of the country they previously controlled.
But even these are not hierarchical, top-down structures. Different substructures within these groups control parts of Colombia where coca is cultivated, frequently fighting each other for control of these areas. Often, they pay farmers for their harvests and for coca paste — the intermediate product that serves as the base ingredient for cocaine hydrochloride. In some regions, these groups operate their own laboratories, employing locals to process coca paste into cocaine. In others, the labs are run by independent producers who pay a “tax” to the dominant criminal group in exchange for permission to operate within its territory.
Colombian criminal groups are usually responsible for moving drugs domestically to points of departure or guaranteeing safe passage for independent traffickers hoping to use their routes for a fee. These departure points include the borders with Ecuador and Venezuela, the Caribbean coast, and the Pacific. Cocaine leaves Colombia from all of its coastlines and borders, and several criminal organizations control each of those exits. But once the drugs are out of the country, the role of Colombian groups often ends.
These independent traffickers are also not necessarily members of Colombian criminal groups. They are typically part of a vast, flexible network of brokers. And they’re one of the most crucial links in the supply chain. Brokers are often the ones who figure out how to bribe port officials to slip cocaine onto container ships. They recruit crews for go-fast boats that run shipments from Colombia’s coast to Central America or Mexico. They may work with multiple criminal groups to source cocaine in South America and other, numerous criminal groups to sell cocaine in consumer markets as well. They are the logistical masterminds of the trade, but the drugs rarely pass through their hands.
The drug trade not only replicates the global economy’s modus operandi, it also uses its infrastructure. Most of these drugs, for instance, move on container ships and vehicles, hidden among legitimate cargo. The most powerful criminal networks, the ones moving the largest volumes, may rely on many methods, among them go-fast boats and semi-submersibles. But they are often making only a small part of the journey. In fact, they are mostly used for short runs to Central America or Caribbean island transfer points, where container routes face less scrutiny, and are then loaded on container ships or go via airplane to their next destination.
The US government has not released any information on the recent cases of alleged drug vessels that were the target of missile attacks. But InSight Crime research suggests that people on these trips are but small cogs in a vast criminal network. Most likely, the ones operating this portion of the trip are locals from the area where the boat departed. And they are often recruited by brokers to pilot the vessel a certain distance in exchange for what could amount to a year’s salary in a single day. Attacking this part of the supply chain would, in other words, do little to disrupt the overall flow of drugs.
Colombia is just one example of how the drug trade operates across Latin America. From Argentina to Mexico, the same pattern repeats: loose networks of traffickers, brokers, and local groups that are fluid, adaptable, and far removed from the “cartel” structures of the past.
Drug trafficking today runs on a sprawling, decentralized web of participants – farmers in Andean enclaves, criminal groups buying and selling, traffickers and brokers arranging shipments, foot soldiers moving product across borders, and drivers carrying it over international waters.
These networks are agile. They adapt. The methods change. But the flow continues. Depicting these complex, multilayered criminal networks as cartels or terrorist groups misrepresents the nature of the problem and, as a result, the strategy needed to fight it.
Featured image: A drone photo of an alleged drug boat. Source: US Secretary of War Pete Hesgeth’s X account.
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