Unchecked Criminal Organizations Are 'Strangling' Latin America as Extortion and Violence Surge

As governments across Latin America devise new ways to curb the operations of drug cartels and other criminal groups, those same organizations have increasingly turned to other crimes like extortion to finance and expand their activities.

With the drug trade, criminal organizations were little by little able to function as profit-driven businesses, each fighting for its own space among consumers. As those groups expanded their business models, they began relying on other crimes to finance their enterprises. One of those was extortion, which spread across Latin America and created a snowball effect, feeding other violent crimes as local governments continued to struggle to contain it.

Experts consulted by El País say armed groups that grew out of the drug trade are now moving into other businesses, especially extortion, because it is simple to enforce. They note that while the actors vary from country to country, organized crime's predatory approach shows clear similarities across Latin America.

In Mexico, for instance, criminal groups often steal fuel from the state oil company's pipelines, a crime known as "huachicoleo." In Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, that same model appears in the illegal extraction of gold and other minerals. And in Brazil, criminal groups cut down trees to meet global demand for timber.

Activities such as illegal mining, human trafficking and extortion have allowed organized crime to extend its reach over institutions, territory and entire communities, experts say.

"In environmental crimes, this is very evident," Cecilia Farfán, head of the North America Observatory at GITOC, a civil society organization that researches transnational organized crime, told El País.

Extortion is most prevalent in Mexico, where major drug cartels such as the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel have built extortion into their operations, targeting sectors such as agriculture, mining, cattle ranching, labor unions and even public officials.

Criminal groups have also taken advantage of the rising number of migrants traveling to the U.S.–Mexico border in recent years, and have started to exploit and extract resources from migrants at both of Mexico's southern and northern borders.

These enterprises, according to GITOC, have played a central role in the region's elevated levels of homicide and violent crime. Nowhere else in the world are so many murders carried out with firearms as in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Compared to 20 years ago, organized crime has more and better weapons, to the point that many people believe they surpass what the armed forces have," Farfán said.

As noted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in its 2023 Global Study on Homicide report, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean report the largest proportion of gun-related homicides in the world.

In 2021, there were at least 89,100 gun-related homicides in the region, including 55,100 in South America, 29,900 in Central America and 4,100 in the Caribbean, which translates into respective homicide rates of 9.3, 16.9 and 12.7 per 100,000.

The share of homicides carried out with firearms ranged from 65 percent in Central America to 67 percent in the Caribbean and 70 percent in South America in 2021, compared with 62 percent in Northern America and 17 percent in Europe.

These levels of violence mirror the broader criminal economy operating across the region.

According to data from the Organized Crime Index cited by GITOC in its 2023 Global Organized Crime Index report, the most prevalent criminal activities in Latin America include human trafficking (average score: 5.56), smuggling (5.00), extortion (4.68), arms trafficking (5.86) and drug trafficking, with particularly high scores for cocaine (7.58) and cannabis (6.08).

Other prominent activities include the illegal exploitation of non-renewable natural resources, crimes involving flora and fauna and financial crimes.

As governments across the region continue battling organized crime, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime wrote in October that tackling the complexity of the problem requires governments to target organized crime not only through drug enforcement but also by dismantling networks behind illegal mining, smuggling and arms trafficking.

"These activities not only generate huge profits for criminal organizations but also devastate communities, destroy ecosystems and strengthen corruption networks. Broadening the focus and acting in a coordinated way on these fronts is an essential first step," the U.N. said.