When soldiers and anti-drug officials dug up 4.4 tons of cocaine at an illegal airstrip in northwest Guyana on August 31, 2024, they uncovered more than just drugs. They found evidence that Guyana’s remote Essequibo region had become a far more significant cocaine transit area than previously imagined.

A seizure of this size may have been a routine find in some of the country’s South American neighbors. But not here. Authorities in Guyana seized just 85 kilograms in all of 2023 and around 415 kilograms in the year prior.

“Sometimes we make seizures and, in hindsight, you wonder what you’re missing,” James Singh, the head of Guyana’s Customs Anti Narcotics Unit (CANU), told InSight Crime in September 2024.

It remains unclear how large a role locals play in trafficking through the country. But moving multi-ton cocaine shipments cannot happen without some level of local participation.

“In order for an organized group to be transporting drugs of that magnitude, it requires a network of stakeholders,” a Guyanese politician, who wished to remain anonymous, told InSight Crime.

Guyanese officials consulted by InSight Crime believe the trade is run mostly by foreign groups from Guyana’s larger neighbors – including Venezuela, which has claimed the Essequibo territory as its own in an escalating diplomatic dispute being adjudicated by the International Court of Justice.

“The transnational aspects are creating the trouble,” a senior Guyanese government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told InSight Crime. “In the drug trade, there are some Venezuelan, some Colombian, and some Brazilian drug networks involved. There are a few Guyanese people who are also associated with it or being brought into it to facilitate movements.”

A Vast Territory

Essequibo’s remoteness and sparse population make it an attractive route for drug traffickers. In many parts, rough jungle terrain limits access to all but the most determined. For most businesses, it would be a logistical challenge too daunting to justify – an inhospitable landscape for bulk transportation. But for drug traffickers, the isolation of seemingly endless rainforest is a blessing. Pilots flying over a sea of green can touch down and take off from jungle airstrips with little risk of detection.

The airstrip where officials discovered 4.4 tons of cocaine in August 2024 was near the small village of Matthew’s Ridge. While it is a mere 42 kilometers from the Venezuelan border in a straight line, the impenetrable forest means it is only accessible by air. Small airstrips littered across Essequibo provide a way for traffickers to transport drugs into and out of Guyana. But the Guyana Defense Force (GDF) has limited manpower and insufficient resources to cover the 160,000-square-kilometer territory.

According to government figures, the GDF currently has a total of 4,200 active military personnel, including air and naval components, for internal security, border patrol, and counter-narcotics operations. The Guyanese government has increased security investments in the face of the growing threat from Venezuela, which recently held elections to choose a governor for the disputed area.

Officials stationed in the area are likely vulnerable to corruption by organized crime networks, given the difficulty of supervising forces in the far-flung region. Although there are no proven cases of official collusion with drug trafficking in Essequibo, GDF personnel have been arrested for such crimes in other parts of Guyana.

Over the last decade, Guyanese governments have created institutions and laws to fight corruption. However, multiple cases of corruption in law enforcement exemplify the system’s persistent vulnerability to organized crime.

“The economic appeal of the drug trade in Guyana, with its high poverty rate and low-paying public sector jobs, leads individuals to become involved in illicit activities and hinders efforts to curb trafficking,” the US State Department concluded in a recent report. 

Venezuela Corruption

Although corruption within Guyanese forces may play a role in enabling drug trafficking, it is the corruption in neighboring Venezuela, and its growing role in the cocaine trade, that truly fuels the lawlessness.

Huge quantities of cocaine flow into Venezuela from its neighbor, Colombia, the world’s top cocaine producer. And for many years, Venezuelan government officials have participated in drug trafficking. Venezuela now also has its own coca cultivation and ability to produce cocaine.

Guyanese authorities regularly detect unregistered drug flights arriving in Essequibo from the west, and while authorities cannot always confirm their origin, Singh, the anti-drug chief, said in some cases flight data collected from planes and testimony from pilots has shown that drugs have been brought in from Venezuela.  

Once cocaine arrives in Guyana, traffickers use it as a transshipment point to international markets.

“There is a shift of cocaine leaving Guyana and going to West Africa and Europe. Pre-2020, we would have seen cocaine going to the Caribbean and into Canada and the United States,” Singh told InSight Crime.

European countries have made several major cocaine seizures linked to Guyana in recent years. In 2020, Belgian officials found 11.5 tons of cocaine in a scrap metal shipment that had been sent from Guyana. More recently, in March 2025, French authorities seized 6.3 tons of cocaine aboard a Guyana-flagged vessel off the coast of West Africa.

After boats leave Guyana, but before they reach their destinations, Singh said criminals often transfer cocaine from separate vessels onto these boats.

“I think criminals are taking advantage of the fact that between Guyana and Europe or the North Atlantic, that area is sort of open and not very well patrolled,” he said.

But drugs do not have to pass through customs, with Essequibo’s river network and vast coastline offering departure points for so-called “narco subs” that can transport tons of narcotics at a time.  

In March 2024, US officials seized 2.4 tons of cocaine from a semi-submersible vessel 150 miles from Guyana that was headed toward Spain. Additionally, a semi-submersible found off the coast of Spain in 2019, the first of its kind to have been discovered in Europe, was believed to have been constructed in Guyana.

Such vessels are also built in northeastern Venezuela, close to the border with Essequibo.

A Growing Problem 

The 4.4-ton cocaine seizure in Essequibo in August 2024 was the most notable sign that Guyana had started playing a larger-than-suspected role in the cocaine trade, but it was not the only one.

Police seized around 210 kilograms of cocaine during an operation near the Venezuelan border in April 2025. And in March 2024, CANU officials and the coast guard seized roughly 535 kilograms from a go-fast boat by the north-central region of Essequibo Islands-West Demerara.

What’s more, the country’s financial system is highly vulnerable to money laundering. Guyana’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), created specifically to combat this crime, has detailed instances where people suspected of being involved in transnational drug trafficking are linked to the mining industry, another economy with a high degree of criminal penetration. 

Guyana’s 2021 National Risk Assessment, conducted by multiple Guyanese government agencies in conjunction with the private sector, found that there is significant illicit revenue laundered through gold smuggling ($2.2 billion), tax evasion ($10.5 million), drug trafficking ($13.4 million), and fraud ($8.4 million).

As of November 2024, 13 money laundering cases remained active in the courts, but only one has been successfully prosecuted, according to US authorities. The low number presented to the FIU corresponds to the cases referred by the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU), which is considered the weak link in the fight against money laundering, given the lack of training of its officers in financial crimes. 

The combination of factors that make Essequibo attractive for drug trafficking could also motivate Maduro’s interest in the region. Controlling the territory would open opportunities for regime officials involved in drug trafficking to expand their activities. With Maduro struggling under mounting economic and political pressure, the Essequibo conflict could provide him with a chance to shore up support from his criminal allies as well as further claims for the region.

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