drug trafficking Archives

December 11, 2025 — No Comments

The U.S. pressure and the Venezuela–Colombia Connection

By Giovanni Giacalone - Central and South America Desk

On October 24, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the President of Colombia Gustavo Petro, his wife, his son, and Petro’s close associate, Armando Benedetti, over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity…President Trump is taking strong action to protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.”

Following the sanctions announcement, Petro named an attorney and stated that he will battle the measure taken by Washington. The Colombian President also praised his approach to countering narcotics: “Combating drug trafficking effectively for decades brings me this measure from the government of the society we helped so much to stop its use of cocaine…Quite a paradox, but not one step back and never on our knees.”

In September, the United States added Colombia to a list of countries failing to cooperate in the war on drugs, for the first time since the Pablo Escobar era.

Gustavo Petro, a former far-left guerrilla leader, claims that his counter-narcotics policy is utilizing a non-repressive approach that prioritises reaching agreements with coca leaf farmers in order to convince them to cultivate other types of crops while, at the same time, using law enforcement to hunt down drug dealers.

However, according to UN data from the Office on Drugs and Crime, the amount of land dedicated to coca cultivation has almost tripled in the past decade to a record 253,000 hectares (625,000 acres) in 2023. Colombia provides around 90% of the cocaine that is sold every year in the U.S.

The Cartel de los Soles

While the Colombian President is accused of failing to cooperate in the drug war, with Colombia being the primary cocaine provider, Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his close associates are accused by the U.S. of leading the drug distribution network through the Cartel de los Soles, transporting the merchandise to Mexico, the final distributor.

In July 2025, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Maduro (indicated as the leader of the Cartel), Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello Rondon. Other senior regime figures had already been blacklisted in 2020. President Trump has also placed a bounty on Maduro’s head, offering $US50 million for information leading to his arrest.

A drug trafficking organisation formed by high-ranking members of the Venezuelan state and armed forces, the Cartel de los Soles emerged in 1993, when two National Guard generals were investigated for drug trafficking. As brigade commanders, they wore a sun as their insignia, hence the name "Cartel de los Soles." Initially, the group was called "Grupo Fenix," and consisted primarily of majors, colonels, and lower-ranking military personnel. Over time, however, senior officers began to enter the fray, taking control of the trafficking ring and eliminating the lower ranks. The Cartel de los Soles was designated by the Trump administration as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation” in November 2025.

The weak Petro-Maduro political alliance

In August 2025, after the sanctions imposed by Washington on Maduro and his associates, Colombian President Gustavo Petro expressed his support for the Venezuelan leader, claiming that “Colombia and Venezuela are the same people, the same flag, the same history” and that “any military operation that is not approved by our sister countries is an aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean.” Petro also referred to Simon Bolivar’s call “freedom or death,” further revealing his attempt to bring Colombia closer to Venezuela.

Since being elected president of Colombia in August 2022, Gustavo Petro has gradually sought to distance the country from Western alliances and position himself alongside Maduro and the Bolivarian Alliance. This shift is unsurprising given his past as a member of the M-19, a far-left armed group founded in the 1970s and inspired by the Uruguayan Tupamaros and the Argentine Montoneros. At its height in the mid-1980s, the M-19 was the second largest armed group in Colombia, after the FARC, with the number of active members estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000. The M-19 demobilised in the late 1980s and transitioned to electoral politics.

Former Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon recently urged the U.S Presidency not to cut off all counter-narcotics aid to Colombia and hike tariffs, because this would affect the Colombian population as well as the military and law enforcement still operating on the frontline against narco-terrorism.

Pinzon instead suggested implementing sanctions against specific individuals who work in support of drug trafficking. This was done a few days later with the sanctions against Petro.

Pinzon was correct in that the situations in Colombia and Venezuela are extremely different and cannot be addressed with the same approach.

Venezuela has been a Bolivarian stronghold for decades, first under Chávez and then under Maduro. U.S. authorities contend that Venezuela has taken on a larger role in regional drug trafficking and has strengthened its ties with Iran, developments that have contributing to instability in the region. Under Maduro, Hezbollah's presence has proliferated in the country, becoming the main launching pad for drug trafficking to the United States.

Colombia, for its part, has always been a staunch ally of Washington, both in the fight against drug trafficking and against terrorism. The Colombian armed forces are trained by the United States and have been working together since the war against the Medellín and Cali cartels in the 1990s.

In 2022, Gustavo Petro was elected president, but despite his efforts, he was unable to separate the country's institutions from Washington. It's no coincidence that during the recent attempted attack by far-left protesters on the US Embassy in Bogotá, Petro had no choice but to deploy riot police to repel the attack, drawing criticism from his own supporters.

Critics argue that Petro’s government could face increasing internal challenges, and sanctions will certainly help. As for Maduro, however, some debate whether increased U.S. engagement may be required in the future, assuming Trump doesn't change his mind at the last minute.

Rising Tensions in the Region

The United States has deployed a massive military force of approximately 10,000 U.S. soldiers, most of them at bases in Puerto Rico, but also a contingent of Marines on amphibious assault ships, as well as F-35 fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, eight warships, and a submarine.

US navy ships and aircrafts have been sighted just a few hundreds of miles off the coast of Venezuela, while the US has been conducting raids against more narco-speed boats leaving the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela.

Moreover, the US Navy announced the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s largest warship, had arrived in the US Southern Command area of operations after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Ford to head to the Caribbean from Europe in late October.

On the other side, this past week, Venezuela has announced a large-scale mobilisation of troops, weapons, and equipment in response to what it calls a growing U.S. military presence in the Caribbean Sea. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said land, air, naval, and reserve forces will conduct exercises through Wednesday, describing the operation as a response to what he termed the “imperialist threat” posed by the United States. The maneuvers will also include participation from the Bolivarian militia, a civilian reserve force aligned with the Maduro regime.

Whether all this mobilisation by the US serves merely to pressure the leader to resign peacefully or is instead instrumental in a regime change operation is another matter.

A full-scale U.S. invasion akin to the 1989 operation in Panama is highly improbable given Venezuela’s circumstances. The country’s vast size and complex geography, characterised by mountainous regions and dense jungle, provide ideal conditions for prolonged guerrilla warfare. Moreover, Venezuela’s armed forces are significantly more organised and capable than Panama’s were at the time. In addition, the Trump administration has shown little inclination to initiate new military conflicts.

A more plausible scenario for U.S. involvement might involve indirect support for a domestic uprising against the current regime, potentially through covert operations led by the Central Intelligence Agency, which may or may not already be active within Venezuelan territory.

June 11, 2024 — No Comments

Dr. Anna Sergi on the ‘Ndrangheta and its international dimension

In this session, Dr. Sergi discusses the characteristics that make the ‘Ndrangheta a poly-crime organisation. She expands on the particular status of ‘Ndrangheta in Europe, which is reflected in the crimes it is involved in, its organisation in different countries, as well as the collaboration with other criminal actors on the continent. She finally mentions the anti-mafia efforts at the EU level, and action levers for improvement.

Dr. Anna Sergi is a professor of criminology and organised crime studies at the University of Essex. She has written several books and academic articles on Calabrian organised crime in Italy and its ties in several countries around the world.

Interviewers: Agostino Bono, Camilla Cormegna and Shams Jouve - Crime, Extremism and Terrorism Team

December 4, 2023 — No Comments

The connection between the Latin Kings “Chicago” in Milan and organized crime in Ecuador

Author: Giovanni Giacalone - Latin America Team

In mid-November 2023, the Italian State Police arrested two Ecuadorean citizens in Milan, both accused of armed aggression, about a fight that broke out on July 9^th between two different Latin American groups outside a disco club in Sesto San Giovanni, a commune in the northern part of Milan’s metropolitan area.

The victim, a 20-year-old Peruvian citizen, was attacked with a machete, receiving blows to the shoulders and the chest; one of these strikes nearly hit his heart. The individual was hospitalized in critical condition at Niguarda Hospital only to be discharged days later with a prognosis of 90 days. Two other individuals who were accompanying him were also beaten with punches and kicks.

The two arrested attackers, both 23 years of age and Ecuadorian citizens, were identified as belonging to the "Chicago" Latin Kings gang.

The Sesto San Giovanni area has long been the scene of activity for this gang; it is no coincidence that last April an operation by the State Police, coordinated by the Milan Prosecutor's Office, led to the arrest of nine members of the Latin Kings Chicago, all aged between 20 and 36 (four Ecuadorian citizens, three Peruvians, one Salvadoran and one Argentinian), who have been accused of criminal conspiracy, attempted murder, personal injury, affray, damage, aggravated theft and dangerous throwing of objects.

The operation developed following investigations regarding an attack that occurred on 5 March 2022, in front of a well-known Sesto S.G. food stand in via Chiese, against the former leader of the rival gang MS13, known as “Kamikaze”; on that occasion, the Latin Kings had punched the victim, hit him with empty beer bottles and with a machete, severely wounding his hand.

The same members of the Latin Kings were also responsible for two fights that occurred on 30 April 2022 in a park in the Brenta hood and via Avezzana, both in Milan (including the theft of an electric scooter during the brawl) and on 30 June 2022 in Assago. Two of the fights were against MS13 members.

Furthermore, on the morning of November 6, 2022, some members of the same group attacked a group of Latin Americans not linked to any gang who were standing outside the "Caffe Glamour" nightclub in via Stamira d'Ancona. One of them was also repeatedly hit with a stone in the chest, back of the head and forehead while he was on the ground, and was consequently hospitalized with head trauma and several fractures.

At the beginning of October 2023, the nine detained Latin Kings Chicago members received their prison sentences: Milan’s Latin Kings leader, 35-year-old Kleber Miguel Cortez Cortez, alias “Cao”, was sentenced to two years of prison; 27-year-old Peruvian Jhonny Farfan Chavez, alias “Don”, leader of the “clique” of Cologno Monzese, was sentenced to 3 years.

The highest sentence, 3 years and 4 months, was inflicted on the 25-year-old Ecuadorian citizen Isaac Giovanny Velez Garcia, alias "Chukino", the main perpetrator of the attack outside the "Caffe Glamour". Five other Latin Kings members were placed in the house, while a sixth one was acquitted.

However, the most interesting aspect of the case concerns a phone interception dated May 15, 2022, between the leader of the Latin Kings Chicago of Milan, "Cao", and one of his compatriots where reference is made to the murder of the former Latin Kings Chicago leader in Ecuador, Manuel Zuniga “Majestic”, killed in an ambush in Quito on May 14, 2022. During the conversation, Cao stated that a member of their gang carried out the murder, boasting that the ambush took place at 7 AM and he received the photos of the murder scene, on his cell phone, ten minutes after it took place.

*Source: By Albert Mestre, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9500206*

Cao then referred to a blood feud within the Latin Kings in Ecuador, explaining to his interlocutor that the gang was divided, that a few months earlier the other faction had killed one of their "Incas" (chief) and therefore they retaliated: "an Inca for an Inca." Cao went further and also explained that, according to rumours coming from Ecuador, it was another leader of the same Latin Kings "Chicago", referred to as "El Diablo", alias of Carlos Manuel Macias Saverio, who killed Majestic. Cao then stated that "Majestic was in charge of the Latin Kings, but the one who called the shots was El Diablo". Cao also speculated that Diablo could become the next target as the blood feud moves ahead.

“El Diablo” Carlos Manuel Macias Saverio is a heavy name in Ecuadorean organized crime, indicated by a member of his gang (alias “Junior”), in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Mail, as the point man in Ecuador for an organization of Albanian narcos led by drug lord Dritan Rexhepi. According to the Daily Mail investigation, the cocaine is loaded onto ships in the port of Guayaquil and then shipped to the European ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Rexhepi was a long-time fugitive and was wanted by the Belgian, Albanian and Italian authorities as he had escaped in 2011 from Voghera prison where he was serving a sentence for attempted murder. In November 2023, Rexhepi was detected and arrested in Turkey.

Among other things, it should be highlighted that although Rexhepi had been arrested in Ecuador in 2015, he continued to manage trafficking from the Latacunga penitentiary, putting himself at the head of the Albanian "Kompania Bello" cartel.

In November 2021, Ecuadorean judicial authorities granted Rexhepi probation despite the serious crimes for which he was being detained, and the drug lord quickly disappeared.

In the summer of 2023, Ecuadorean media sources speculated that Rexhepi was hiding in a luxurious neighbourhood not far from the port of Guayaquil, but then in November, he was arrested in Turkey.

In the meantime, the whereabouts of Carlos Manuel Macias Saverio “Diablo” are still unknown. According to Ecuadorean sources, the individual controls the drug business in the Duràn area, east of Guayaquil. He is wanted for murder, and in 2014 he was also sentenced to 2 years and 4 months for drug trafficking and illegal possession of weapons.

October 17, 2023 — No Comments

Ecuador’s Dangerous Crossroads: Gangs, Trafficking Pathways and Future Perspectives

Authors: Shams Jouve and Isabelle Despicht - Crime, Terrorism and Extremism Team

Ecuador making headlines: brutal assassinations and increased gang violence

As of today, Ecuador is ranked as the least safe country in Latin America, finding itself in the midst of a bloody turf war, with soaring violence linked to organised crime, civil unrest as well as drug trafficking. Just a glance at the crime rate of 2021 paints a sobering picture of Ecuador's current state of affairs, revealing an alarming 79.79% increasecompared to the previous year. Fast forward to 2023, homicide rates, too, are set to increase up to 40 per 100,000 individuals.

This surge in violence was accompanied by the assassination of at least six political figures, including presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, whose death made headlines in August 2023. The murder of Villavicencio, who previously worked as an investigative journalist and uncovered corruption cases in the country, serves as a potent symbol of the growing influence of gangs and their willingness to assert dominance and territorial control in Ecuador.

How have Ecuador's geographical location and institutional weaknesses contributed to criminal influence?

Ecuador's geographical features have long played a role in shaping trafficking routes in the region. Ecuadorian ports represent key transit points for drugs, which are then shipped to Europe and the United States. Laura Lizarazo, senior analyst for the Andean region at political risk consultancy Control Risks, explains: "The market is flooded with cocaine and criminal organisations are adapting to explore this over-production". Equally, Ecuador represents an ideal transhipment point for both human trafficking and illegal arms trade.

For decades, Ecuador was shielded from cocaine-related violence that plagued many other countries in Latin America. This was the result of various factors, among others, an agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), one of the most active armed groups in the Andes region. The FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group founded in 1961, underwent extensive shifts to finally become involved with the drug trade in Latin America in the 1990s. By 2016, it controlled a staggering 60% of the world's most productive coca crops.

Despite the aforementioned, the Ecuadorian government remained engaged with the FARC in the 2000s and 2010s. Meanwhile, the 21st century observed a phenomenal expansion of illegal trafficking and Ecuadorian gangs' influence in the area. Initially mainly governed by Mexican and Colombian cartels and mafia groups, working with local criminal entities as intermediaries, the country slowly became a key transhipment point for illegal trafficking.

New players, such as Chinese mafias in the case of human smuggling, emerged. Local criminal groups gained considerable power and organisational capabilities, including control over a considerable part of the prison system, and gang violence led to several prison massacres and an unprecedented homicide rate.

Another significant obstacle is the emergence of protection rackets, which arose out of prison gangs empowered by police intelligence. These illicit webs thrive at developing patronage networks by establishing connections with the government and accessing its resources. They frequently enlist public officials and coerce them, reaping benefits from state dismantlement. Amongst others, they have been recognised for their role in disseminating prison intelligence to purposely misinform the public.

Amid the aforementioned, several government policies over the last decades have participated in declining criminal activity through social inclusion, police reform, and innovative approaches to criminal justice, including the legalisation of several local gangs. However, public institutions remain weakened by endemic corruption, facilitating criminal activities and compromising state integrity.

The state's inability to monopolise the use of legitimate violence, along with its lack of transparency, has highly damaged public trust in authorities. This further compounds the already challenging economic situation, which fuelled a series of protests over a cost of living crisis in summer 2022.

While all these challenges exist, Ecuador currently aims to build a robust and adequate legal framework to tackle organised crime through local, interstate and transnational cooperation. Nevertheless, implementing such legislation appears to be a significant challenge due to insufficient resources and the lack of independence of Ecuador's judiciary.

*Source*: *https://www.pexels.com/photo/the-national-flag-of-ecuador-15652224/*

A wake-up call for Ecuador’s democracy

Juan Papier, Human Rights Watch's acting deputy director for the Americas, considers Villavicencio's death to be "a wakeup call for Ecuador's democracy". Indeed, strong security policies are needed to reinforce public authorities and tackle transnational organised crime.

As part of the Global Programme on Implementing the Organized Crime Convention, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) currently works with Ecuador representatives to establish a National Strategy against organised crime. This partnership aims to reinforce international cooperation and local coordination between representatives of various Ecuadorian institutions. Moreover, the Republic collaborated with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) "Ecuador SinCero Programme" to tackle Corruption Prevention, Transparency and Citizen Participation between January 2020 and June 2023. This cooperation programme articulated various initiatives, mainly focusing on Public Integrity and the Open Government Model.

Conclusive remarks

While it seems certain that crime and violence rates are still set to rise, recent political events, including Fernando Villavicencio’s assassination, could well represent a pivotal moment for Ecuador. However, to stand ground on these incredibly difficult challenges, measures tackling rampant corruption and promoting judicial independence, transparency and the accountability of perpetrators are needed.

To that end, it is in Ecuador’s interest to seek international guidance in building an effective National Strategy against Transnational Organised Crime and strengthen its collaboration with neighbouring countries. Yet, international cooperation can only complement guidance and concrete domestic efforts. Governmental initiatives must improve public sector management and emphasise civic education and engagement.

In addition, more effective measures should be implemented concerning the protection of local whistleblowers, which still fall short of adequate reporting mechanisms, as demonstrated by the case of Julio Rogelio Viteri Ungaretti v Ecuador, brought before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), in which a member of the Ecuadorian military suffered reprisals for noting irregularities, including acts of corruption within the Armed Forces.

Nevertheless, reducing corruption, strengthening the domestic legal system, improving public sector management, and promoting education and citizen participation will certainly not prove enough to the immense task of strengthening Ecuador’s institutions. Change needs to come from within. Ecuador has an inherent interest in innovating and coming up with solutions that truly allow for this change to be sustainable. Perhaps it could in the future explore the avenues brought by emerging technologies, which may be used, for instance, to reduce human interaction and control corruption within administrative processes.

January 25, 2022 — No Comments

The Colombia-Brazil Drug Connection

By: Giovanni Giacalone and André L. V. C. Carvalho.

*Image Source*: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontera_entre_Brasil_y_Colombia#/media/Archivo:Trijunction.JPG

On January 3^rd, 2022, Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of five men in Colombia’s southern department of Putumayo. The detained individuals are now facing drug trafficking charges as they are accused of running their own marijuana plantations and cocaine labs in Colombia’s department of Cauca and using the local indigenous communities to transfer the drugs near the Colombia/Brazil border before having it shipped across to Brazilian territory by boat.

During the operations, the police seized over $250,000,000 from the organization, together with a large quantity of cocaine, marijuana, and three cargo carriers.

The Attorney’s office also revealed the identities of the arrested individuals: Medardo Alfredo Cifuentes Giraldo “Gordo”, in charge of coordinating the purchase, storage, and concealment of the merchandise, as well as handling transactions on the Colombian-Brazilian border; Wilmer Alexander Bastidas Bernal “Engineer”, indicated by investigators as the financial link; Kelly Johana Gómez Gómez “Mona”, allegedly responsible for recruiting transporters and guards at the collection centers; Pablo Giovanny Landázuri Cortés “Negro”, one of the alleged drug producers; and Víctor Ferney Giraldo Barrera, “Vaca”, who is credited with transporting the drug.

The Attorney General’s Office also revealed that the drug loads were supposed to be sold to major criminal enterprises operating in Brazil, such as Comando Vermelho (CV) - one of the oldest criminal organizations of Brazil -, and Família do Norte (FDN), the biggest organization of the Amazon region, with chapters in Peru, Venezuela and Colombia.

Over 900 km of border between the two countries in the dense Amazon jungle, make it extremely difficult to control illegal trafficking, and rivers such as the Putumayo, Rio Caqueta, Vaupes, and Rio Apaporis have become major ways of transit for illegal substances.

As exposed by InsightCrime, while much of the drug flow into Brazil comes from Bolivia and Paraguay, the Colombia connection has become increasingly relevant. This aspect should not be underestimated since in the past few years, Brazilian narco-organizations have become major exporters of drugs to Europe. As explained to Reuters by custom inspector Oswaldo Dias, in less than a decade Brazil’s drug gangs have risen from domestic street sellers to major international players in the drug business, using Santos and other ports to ship narcotics, mainly to Europe, with a value of over $10 billion only for the European market. The phenomenon was confirmed by Laurent Laniel, a senior analyst at the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

As to Colombia, the ongoing clashes near the tormented border with Venezuela between ELN and FARC over illegal business control, with the Colombian army having to send reinforcements, surely doesn’t help the central government as it swallows up resources that could be used to control the southern part of the border with Brazil.

Additionally, the Colombian government has to deal with the increasing activity of the Urabeños drug cartel and paramilitary group and specifically with its franchise-like model of trafficking that relies on local gangs with no formal links to the cartel as they are simply sub-contracted to operate for them, in their name. (ITSS exposed the Urabeños drug cartel activity in November 2021).

According to the aforementioned, the drug trafficking flow into Brazil comes in most part from Bolivia and Paraguay. Although ties between Brazilian and Colombian criminal enterprises are not new, they have been growing in the last year and the impacts on the security in the region are starkly.

In 2017, investigations conducted by the Brazilian Federal Police and the Federal Prosecutor of the Amazon region pointed to a ‘strictly close’ relationship between the FDN and the FARC. The FDN operates primarily in the North region and has control over the main drug flow routes in the triple border region between Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Moreover, according to the reports, the organization used its connections with the Colombian partners to trade drugs and buy heavy weaponry to be used in Brazil.

However, the FDN is not the only one. Both the CV and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) – the two biggest criminal enterprises in Brazil - have also been strengthening their ties with Colombian organizations for a number of years. In 2019, the Army Chief of Staff of Colombia reported that the ELN had entered into a partnership with CV with the aim of facilitating drug trafficking (especially cocaine) in the Amazon region, specifically on the border between Leticia (Colombia) and Tabatinga (Brazil), using the Solimões River to provide an outlet for cocaine trafficking.

The success of these organizations is due to an outdated patrolling system, which, when associated with the complex geography of the region, allows them to easily escape from army platoons and federal police units. Among other things, the partnership with Colombian cartels provided Brazilian organizations with heavy weaponry and high-quality navigation equipment and vessels, often superior to security forces in the region. Currently, the 1,632km Brazil-Colombia route is practically uninhabited and unprotected, a fact that drives its growth every year. A clear example is that in recent years, the volume of drugs seized in the region has grown by no less than 1,324%.

This generates a series of other problems for security in the region, since in addition to the existing alliance between Brazilian and Colombian organizations there is also a war for the control of the main trafficking flows. In 2017, with the help of weapons provided by Colombian organizations, the FDN murdered more than 60 members of rival factions that were at war over the flow of cocaine. In this way, taking into account the delicate situation faced by the security forces in the region, the region remains an eternal "no man's land" in the hands of large drug trafficking organizations.