From: Huffington Post
Corruption in Latin America and Marijuana Legalization: The Case of Ex-President Molina
Co-authored by Jeff Zinsmeister, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations
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Regrettably, other examples of collaboration between corrupt governments and traffickers of illegal, as well as legal, goods abound in the Americas. Parts of the Mexican government have existed symbiotically with the drug cartels since the latter’s origins in the 20th century, a symbiosis that continues even today with the escape of the notorious Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. These same cartels, incidentally, also thrive on legal lines of business. For example, there is evidence that the Zetas generate significant profits from smuggling cigarettes, accounting for up to 50% of their revenues. Similarly, on the other side of the country, the Knights Templar counted as some of their most profitable ventures iron ore mining, extortion, and logging. In other words, the fact that an industry is legal does not necessarily remove it from the clutches of the business underworld.
And in more southern parts, political leaders in Paraguay–another country with very high levels of corruption–are intimately involved in the contraband cigarette business. High-ranking officials, including sitting President Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara, are shareholders of large tobacco companies that produce over 10 times the number of cigarettes that their country consumes. The large majority of that excess production is exported illegally through the porous border with Argentina and Brazil, facilitated by those businesses’ political connections. With such a flow of illegal product entering its territory, one in every three cigarettes now sold in Brazil is contraband.
