Tuesday, September 26, 2017

US officials raise alarm over Colombia's cocaine boom

Colombia's pursuit of peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has had a "staggering" impact on the country's cocaine trade. Many echoed the idea that the Colombian government had dropped the ball on counternarcotics efforts for the sake of peace negotiations. FARC rebels do appear to be asserting themselves in Colombia's criminal underworld and the new cocaine boom — production rose 134% between 2013 and 2016.

The amount of export-quality cocaine produced in Colombia increased from 270 metric tons in 2013 to 910 metric tons in 2016. This is more than 85% of world supply.
US Coast Guard officials have warned several times that their units are unable to keep up with the flows of illegal narcotics coming to the US from South and Central America.

In 2016, the Coast Guard intercepted nearly 450,000 pounds of cocaine with an estimated value of $6 billion. In March, a Coast Guard cutter unloaded 16 tons of cocaine seized by US and Canadian ships over a month period in the eastern Pacific. In May, a cutter unloaded 18.5 tons of the drug seized by six ships off the coasts of Central and South America. In June another cutter unloaded 18 tons.

Colombian security forces captured 28 members of the Gulf Clan. The country's most-feared drug gang, the operation targeted the Gulf Clan in the northwestern region of Antioquia. Columbia had previously announced that security forces had killed the Gulf Clan's second-in-command Roberto Vargas Gutierrez, alias "Galivan."
The Gulf Clan accounts for some 70 percent of Colombia's cocaine production.
See ----->http://gangstersoutt.blogspot.ca/2017/06/colombias-massive-cocaine-harvest.html
See ----->http://gangstersoutt.blogspot.ca/2017/05/colombian-cocaine-production-more-than.html