Regional Issues: Mexico, South and Central America
Illicit trafficking networks can have devastating impacts on source, transit, and user states. One of the most significant aspects of this problem is its self-perpetuating nature: the weaker a state becomes in its ability to govern, maintain security, and provide essential services, the more vulnerable it becomes to criminal and terrorist organizations. In turn, these groups fuel even greater violence, corruption, instability, and erosion of the rule of law, further weakening both the affected state and neighboring countries connected through regional trafficking networks.
The Tri-Border Area (TBA) between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, for example, is well known for weak governance, corruption, and limited border enforcement, conditions that have enabled smuggling, trafficking, money laundering, and other forms of transnational criminal activity. As a result, border regions can evolve into “areas of limited statehood” or “ungoverned spaces,” where criminal and terrorist actors operate with limited state control. These conditions contribute to increases in drug trafficking, gang activity, arms trafficking, and human smuggling across source and transit regions. At the same time, illicit economies distort local markets and create dependence on illegal trade, weakening governments’ ability to generate legitimate employment opportunities and tax revenue. The collapse of living conditions in countries such as Venezuela has also contributed to mass migration and increased illicit cross-border activity across otherwise peaceful borders (Kacowicz et al. 2020).
Mexico, both a production and transit state, is another well-known example of how illicit trafficking networks can reshape governance and society. During the “War on Drugs” period from 2007 to 2011, cartel violence intensified dramatically, with homicides linked to organized crime increasing from 732 in 2006 to 16,968 in 2011 (Fuerte Celis et al. 2018). As criminal organizations expanded into extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking, and territorial control, civilians became direct victims of intimidation, torture, and public executions, while state institutions were weakened through corruption, bribery, and “state capture” by cartels. Rival groups such as the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel fought over key trafficking corridors into the United States, contributing to displacement, fear, and the abandonment of some local communities (Fuerte Celis et al. 2019).
To assume that drugs are the main problem in these countries is somewhat naïve. In Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela, illegal gold mining has evolved from a localized informal activity into a massive transnational criminal economy. In some regions, it now reportedly generates greater profits than cocaine trafficking for organized crime groups, producing billions of dollars in revenue while causing severe environmental destruction and widespread human exploitation, including labor trafficking, prostitution rings, debt bondage, and coercive labor systems (Farah and Babineau 2019).
These examples demonstrate that illicit trafficking networks weaken source, transit, and user states by fueling corruption, violence, economic distortion, and institutional decay while creating transnational cycles of instability that extend far beyond the regions where these activities originate.
References:
Farah, Douglas, and Kathryn Babineau. 2019. A Strategic Overview of Latin America: Identifying New Convergence Centers, Forgotten Territories, and Vital Hubs for Transnational Organized Crime. Strategic Perspectives 28. Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University Press.
Fuerte Celis, María del Pilar, Enrique Pérez Lujan, and Rodrigo Cordova Ponce. 2019. “Organized Crime, Violence, and Territorial Dispute in Mexico (2007–2011).” Trends in Organized Crime 22: 188–209.
Kacowicz, Arie M., Exequiel Lacovsky, and Daniel F. Wajner. 2020. “Peaceful Borders and Illicit Transnational Flows in the Americas.” Latin American Research Review 55 (4): 727–741.