HomeNewsBriefIs The FARC Growing Coca In Panama?
BRIEF

Is The FARC Growing Coca In Panama?

FARC / 25 JUN 2013 BY MARGUERITE CAWLEY EN

The discovery of Central America's first ever coca plantation in the Panama-Colombia border region could indicate the expansion of FARC activities in an area already used by the guerrilla group for drug trafficking.

In a joint counterdrug operation, Colombian and Panamanian authorities discovered a coca plantation in the remote Panamanian jungle region of Chucurti, near the Caribbean coast and border between the two countries, reported Spanish newspaper El Pais. Officials destroyed 4,495 plants in an approximately two hectare area, an anonymous source from the Panamanian special border police (SENAFRONT) told news agency AFP.

During the operation, authorities also found a small coca processing and cocaine production laboratory, which officials estimated had the capacity to produce around 30 kilograms of cocaine per month.

Although the plantation was the first to be found on Central American territory, the find was "not altogether surprising, since there are plantations on the other side of the border," Director of the Costa Rican Drug Institute (ICD) Carlos Alvarado Valverde told El Pais.

InSight Crime Analysis

The area where the coca plantation was found is located in the dense jungle region known as the Darien Gap, which dominates the Colombia-Panama border and is used as an operational base by the 57th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The 57th Front is heavily involved in international cocaine trafficking, has links with the Urabeños criminal group (which has also expanded its presence in Panama), runs cocaine to Mexican cartels and has been known to use Panama City to finalize drug deals.

The well-documented presence of the FARC in the area makes it unlikely that it is not responsible for or at least complicit in the coca plantation found in Panamanian territory, indicating the group may have expanded local operations to include cultivation as well as trafficking. The expansive and inhospitable nature of the terrain makes it difficult for Colombian and Panamanian security forces to maintain a consistent presence.

Coca cultivation near the Colombian border in Ecuador has also been attributed to the FARC.

Central America is a key link in the cocaine trafficking chain, with an estimated 84 percent of US-bound cocaine passing through the region, according to a 2011 report. Panama itself was the operational center of an international drug trafficking ring broken up in April 2012, believed to have been supplied by the FARC's 30th Front. 

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.

Tags

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

CHINA AND CRIME / 11 OCT 2021

Contraband Chinese cigarettes are pouring into Latin America, infiltrating old smuggling routes and threatening longstanding criminal empires.

BRAZIL / 26 JUL 2023

On paper, Latin American governments are fighting back against the shark fin trade. In reality, the massacre continues.

EX-FARC MAFIA / 13 OCT 2021

The fighting that erupted in the Venezuelan state of Apure in early 2021 was on the surface a classic guerrilla…

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…