HomeNewsBriefUS Predicts Return to Caribbean Drug Trafficking Routes
BRIEF

US Predicts Return to Caribbean Drug Trafficking Routes

CARIBBEAN / 9 NOV 2011 BY JEANNA CULLINAN EN

A State Department official predicts that over the next few years traffickers will increasingly return to using the Caribbean to smuggle drugs into the U.S.

The assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, William Brownfield, was in Miami for a meeting of Latin American and U.S. diplomats to discuss regional security initiatives and multilateral cooperation against organized crime.

Over the last few years increased law enforcement presence and higher interdictions along the U.S.-Mexico border have caused drug traffickers to look for alternative routes. According to Brownfield, a return to the Caribbean routes, which have close proximity to supply, transit and consuming countries, would be the most logical decision for these organizations.

The Caribbean was used to ship the majority of cocaine consumed in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. As authorities cracked down on smuggling along this maritime passageway, however, drug traffickers shifted operations to overland routes via Mexico.

Brownfield also warned that technological innovations -- like the increasingly sophisticated submersibles and semi-submersibles used to traffic drugs out of South America -- make interdiction more difficult and demonstrate the need for more comprehensive anti-narcotics policies.

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

ELITES AND CRIME / 24 NOV 2022

Sanctions from the US and Canada are targeting Haiti's long history of patronage between political parties and violent gangs.

ARGENTINA / 5 JUL 2022

Why did drug trafficking enjoy such a boom during the COVID-19 pandemic…

CARIBBEAN / 10 MAR 2023

Jamaica has convicted an infamous gang leader using recently-amended legislation. But has the change in law reduced gang violence?…

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…