InvestigationDrug traffickers prove to be savvy crisis managers: despite the slowdown in activity, transport and supply difficulties due to the fight against the pandemic, the cartels are exploiting new channels and outlets
A drug lord arrested in Bolivia during a simple routine check as part of the containment measures, the selling price of cocaine in Peru, the bag of cannabis rising in Paris and New York, a decrease of heroin supply in Europe, Southwest Asia and North America: measures taken by the authorities to contain the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus have caused an unprecedented shock wave in all markets illicit drugs around the world, from production to consumption to trafficking.
In a short report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), dated May, we learn that many countries have reported an overall shortage of many types of narcotic drugs at retail. The document notes a substantial increase in prices by region, as well as reductions in purity, prompting consumers to switch from drugs (from heroin to synthetic opioids, for example) and to resort to more frequent drug treatments. In Italy and Central Asia, drug seizures have decreased. In Afghanistan, the closure of the borders, in the middle of the poppy harvest period, between March and June, gives rise to fears an increasing risk of overdoses around the world due to the cutting products used by dealers to alleviate the shortage.
The list of upheavals is long. It takes on the appearance of Prévert in Latin America, the epicenter of global drug trafficking estimated between 426 and 652 billion dollars (between 375 and 573 billion euros) per year, according to Global Financial Integrity , a Washington-based think tank.
Harder borders to cross
It’s here in the American subcontinent that the gangs make colossal profits by producing and transporting cocaine and marijuana, but also methamphetamine, heroin, produced mainly in Mexico, the third largest producer in the world, and the synthetic opiate Fentanyl, which are then sold worldwide. Here too, seizures of narcotics continue to reach new heights, depending on the region, despite the pandemic and the slowdown in activities, its corollary. Here too, the forecasts of illegal production are the most alarming, due to the economic crisis looming in the region – comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to specialists – a crisis synonymous with increased casualization of populations and d '' use of illicit channels and markets as a means of subsistence.
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