HomeNewsBriefDominican Groups Eye Lucrative Patagonia Drug Market
BRIEF

Dominican Groups Eye Lucrative Patagonia Drug Market

ARGENTINA / 22 MAR 2019 BY JOSEFINA SALOMÓN EN

A series of arrests of Dominican nationals in southern Argentina over recent months have highlighted a highly lucrative drug market in the area, where they can be sold for higher prices than in Buenos Aires.

Authorities in the city of Las Heras, in the southern province of Santa Cruz, arrested three Dominican men on March 16 accused of leading a micro-trafficking organization, reported La Vanguardia Noticias.

A day earlier, three men from the Dominican Republic and one Argentine national were detained in the city of Comodoro Rivadavia, in the province of Chubut, also accused of transporting drugs with intent to distribute.

In September 2018, as a result of a nine-month-long investigation, federal police dismantled a group known as “Banda del Caribe” (Caribbean Gang). Four Dominicans and one Colombian were arrested while cash, mobile phones and ammunition were seized. They were accused of periodically transporting cocaine from Buenos Aires to various cities in the province of Santa Cruz.

InSight Crime Analysis

Dominican micro-trafficking crime groups might have found themselves a lucrative, and seemingly easy to tap into, market in the scenic cities of Argentina's Patagonia.

According to an expert who spoke to InfoBae, a kilo of cocaine worth $10,000 in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, can be sold for $15,000 in any of the provinces in Patagonia.

A gram of cocaine in Ushuaia or Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego can sell for between 800 to 1,000 pesos (between around $20 and 25). In Buenos Aires, the price drops to between 300 to 500 pesos (around $7 and $12).

The high markups are related to the costs involved in transporting products to these remote cities and a particularly growing market.

Speaking at a press conference in the city of Trelew, Chubut, Argentina’s Security Secretary, Eugenio Burzaco said that consumption of drugs per capita in the six provinces that make up Argentina’s Patagonia (La Pampa, Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz y Tierra del Fuego) is “higher than the national average” and growing.

SEE MORE: Argentina News and Profile

Experts claim the groups in charge of transporting the drugs in small quantities from Buenos Aires to Patagonia, mostly by bus, are becoming more sophisticated.

While Dominican nationals are not the only ones involved in Argentina's growing microtrafficking problem, the string of arrests reported in recent months might suggest the groups they control are developing in size and reach, which has caused some confrontations between them. This has forced authorities to zoom into their activities.

“They are not large organizations, but mainly family clans: parents, children and cousins. Lately, we have also started noticing confrontations between groups of Dominicans caused by money that was not paid back or favors that were not returned,” a judicial source told Infobae.

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

COCAINE / 29 MAR 2023

The DEA faces criticisms for a review into its foreign operations following corruption scandals.

BAGDAD / 10 JUN 2021

Panama’s northern province of Colón, sitting at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, is seeing a truly staggering increase…

COCAINE / 3 DEC 2021

Authorities in Panama are intercepting massive loads of cocaine at ports and in coastal waters, showing how the country is…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…