Tusi diary #1 - Synthetics drugs are booming all over Latin America, and we don't really know why
Or maybe we do, let's try and explain
In Latin American countries, law enforcement strategies against drug trafficking organizations and organized crime groups have been motivated by old network structures of the '90s and 2000's Mexican and Colombian cartels. The new wave of organized crime groups and the latest market opportunities in the drug markets are paving the way for a disrupted crime market. Organized crime groups would operate like a highly centralized network, with a pyramidal structure and concentrated decision power. Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel was the most famous one serving this way. During the last decades, organized crime groups have been changed because of several - mostly exogenous - factors.
For instance, in Colombia, many factors have resulted in significant shifts in the criminal landscape in Colombia and fragmentation in the supply of cocaine to wholesale traffickers. The most famous examples are the demobilization of the paramilitary organization Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) in 2006 and the peace agreement signed between the Colombian government and the FARC. These regional changes led to a fragmentation of the criminal networks that control the cocaine supply chain, and Colombia is not the only country experiencing this phenomenon. The increasing number of criminal organizations may have translated into the erosion of established monopolies of the biggest suppliers and better accessibility to cocaine supply for a broader range of actors. Also, new entry points have appeared in the drug market, thanks to new technologies and the rising consumption of synthetic drugs.
When studying OCGs in the LatAm region, we cannot ignore that this is a two-sided game where law enforcement agencies and drug trafficking organizations adapt asynchronously to their opponent's strategy. Indeed, the Medellin cartel's dismantlement opened room for new organizations, operating with local partners more decentralized. In this case, most cartels try to move from a violent strategy to a business-minded vision. They look for alliances at each node of the supply chain and everywhere, geographically speaking.
Changes in modus operandi imply changes in mitigation strategies, and we identified a few gaps in current approach, especially in the following segments :
Once pyramidal and highly centralized, network structures have been disrupted by the emergence of new small OCGs. A combination of open-source intelligence and social network analysis could give insights into small OCG network topologies.
If classical trade-based money laundering schemes have been studied, there is little research on new methods involving digital assets and web-based marketplaces.
With multiple communities of micro-traffickers, new network topologies offer critical advantages to drug traffickers: they are no longer as vulnerable to "decapitation strategies" – targeting top-level leaders – as no operation depends on one organization or leader. They are also less susceptible to the loss of operatives further down the chain, as strict compartmentalization means a limited number of people can provide information on other nodes.
Also, localized networks adapt more quickly to new market opportunities, such as synthetic drugs, and seem very attractive to organized crime groups. These markets dodge the classic supply chain; hence law enforcement agencies appear less powerful in mitigating traffic. Colombian and Mexican organized crime groups have been involved in synthetic drug exportation and human resource sharing with some European countries. The classical supply chain that dictated law enforcement strategy is no longer valid on synthetic drugs and decentralized networks. Also, the ease of production and the rising consumption in big LatAm cities make it attractive for micro-traffickers.