From: Diálogo
By Santiago Wills
Cocaine, heroin, and other illicit substances are high-priority targets in the fight against drug trafficking in Latin America, but regional security forces are also combatting attempts to smuggle alcohol and cigarettes.
Both are legal, but criminal organizations are trying to secretly transport them into the country to avoid paying taxes. Drug trafficking groups like Los Rastrojos and the Clan Úsuga have taken up the practice as well, using buses, trucks, private cars and even boats.
It’s become big business in Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Honduras, El Salvador and Panamá. In these countries, one out of every four bottles of liquor is illegally produced or sold. Their sales, along with contraband cigarettes, total more than $2.3 billion (USD), with tax losses of about $736 million (USD). Those losses, which would normally fund the government, go to fund criminal enterprises instead
“This is an illegal business that’s part of a larger economic criminal system,” POLFA director Brig. Gen. Gustavo Moreno said.
Large seizures in Colombia
That system extends beyond the borders of Latin America. Criminal groups are smuggling alcohol and cigarettes from countries as far away as Switzerland, Scotland, and the Czech Republic. Often their contraband ends up in Colombia – or along the Pacific Coast, arriving at the Port of Buenaventura in the department of Nariño, near the border with Ecuador.
