HomeNewsAnalysisHow Organized Crime & Corruption Intersect in LatAm
ANALYSIS

How Organized Crime & Corruption Intersect in LatAm

COLOMBIA / 4 DEC 2014 BY JEREMY MCDERMOTT EN

As Transparency International publishes its annual rankings on corruption, InSight Crime looks at how corruption is impacted in Latin America by one of its most powerful promoters: organized crime. 

In order to facilitate business, organized crime groups corrupt certain elements of the state -- particularly the security forces and the judiciary. Organized crime has also shown an interest in infiltrating the political arena in many parts of the region.

Non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI) has been releasing an annual ranking of the world's most corrupt countries since 1995 -- although the number of countries surveyed, and the methodology used for doing so, has changed over time, meaning that the more recent rankings are not comparable with the earlier ones. The NGO gives each country a score based on "how corrupt their public sectors are seen to be," according to their website.

This number is calculated by aggregating numeric scores calculated by 12 other institutions -- a combination of research NGOs like Freedom House, non-profit foundations like the Germany-based Bertelsmann Foundation, private companies like risk analysis corporation the PRS Group and the Economist Intelligence Unit, and financial institutions like the World Bank

According to Transparency International's most recent index, Venezuela and Haiti were perceived as the most corrupt countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, followed by Paraguay, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guyana. On the other end of the spectrum, Barbados, Chile, Uruguay and the Bahamas were perceived as being least corrupt.

However, ranking corruption within a country based on the power of organized crime groups may result in a very different list. It is one thing to have officials asking for bribes to get permits granted, make speeding tickets disappear and secure government contracts. It is something else to have entire municipal police forces on the payroll of drug cartels, as in Mexico; to have money from drugs traffickers or illegal gold miners fund political campaigns on a massive scale, as in Peru; or to bribe and intimidate an entire Constituent Assembly to outlaw extradition, as Pablo Escobar did in Colombia.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Police Reform

Organized crime seeks to corrupt state officials so they will either turn a blind eye to their activities or actually facilitate them. The priority is always the police, the very force that should be investigating their activities. Anti-narcotics police forces are a top criminal priority in Latin America. Other priorities for drug trafficking are the officials controlling the potential departure or transit points for drug shipments, like port and airport officials and police.

Investigations into organized crime are handled either by police or the attorney general’s office, both frequent victims of bribery or intimidation. If organized crime cannot prevent cases being investigated and presented, then it goes after judges. If all these attempts fail and criminals get convicted, then they try to run their businesses from jails, which in many parts of Latin America are finishing schools for hardened offenders and centers of criminal activity. Once convicted, there have been examples of criminals buying themselves a presidential pardon, as rumored in Peru.

Many organized crime syndicates have sought the ultimate protection: highly placed political figures. The highest profile examples of this have been in Colombia. In 1994 the Cali Cartel was believed to have paid $6 million to ensure that Ernesto Samper (today Secretary General of UNASUR) won the presidency. In 2002, the paramilitary army of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) managed to win more than 30 percent of Congress, in a bid to ensure favorable terms for a peace deal.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Elites and Organized Crime

In light of the above, InSight Crime has ranked Latin American countries based on our assessment of organized crime's earning power and ability to corrupt elements of the state. Our ranking is certainly not based on the same rigorous methodology of Transparency International, but stems from our experience studying organized crime syndicates across the region:

Mexico is ranked 103 out of 174 nations by Transparency International. For InSight Crime it has the most powerful criminal syndicates in the region, closely followed by Colombia, which TI ranks at 94. Venezuela, ranked as the most corrupt nation in the region by TI, is an important regional criminal center, acting as the transit nation for some 200 tons of Colombian cocaine headed to the US and Europe. Its organized crime is nowhere near as powerful as that of Mexico or Colombia, but is perhaps unique in the region as it is embedded in the Chavista regime -- a structure we call the “Cartel of the Suns,” in reference to the gold stars Venezuelan generals wear on their epaulettes. Paraguay, which also languishes towards the bottom of TI’s list, is an important producer of marijuana, but does not have native powerful transnational organized crime structures, although Brazilians do have significant presence.

What this limited exercise shows is that the presence of powerful organized crime does not guarantee that a nation will fare badly in Transparency International’s corruption index, although it is certain that this must be a contributing factor.

*Kyra Gurney, David Gagne and Elyssa Pachico contributed to this article. The research presented is, in part, the result of a project funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Its content is not necessarily a reflection of the positions of the IDRC. The ideas, thoughts and opinions contained in this document are those of the author or authors.

IDRC logo blue full name

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COLECTIVOS / 20 DEC 2021

November regional elections brought changes to many powerful offices in regions where criminal organizations wield significant political power, highlighting the…

ELITES AND CRIME / 17 NOV 2021

At around 11 p.m. on April 6, 2020, Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Solís was returning to the military base he commanded…

ECUADOR / 19 AUG 2022

Two subjects on a motorcycle attacked prosecutor Federico Estrella outside his home in Babahoyo, Los Ríos, on August 15. Estrella…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…