NARCOS ARE SUFFERING FROM THE COVID-19 / THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Narcos are suffering from the Covid-19 lockdown too

Organised crime dealt big blow by disrupted supply chains and blocked sales channels

Alejandro Hope


Mexiacn soldiers patrol in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, during the attempted arrest of a drug lord. In Mexico, fuel theft and human trafficking are also significant sources of income for criminal gangs © Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty


The pandemic has locked down the global economy and, like everyone else, criminal gangs are suffering from disrupted supply chains. For governments, this presents a rare opportunity to take back control of areas run by organised crime.

In Mexico, fentanyl and methamphetamine production has reportedly crumpled as imports of chemical precursors from China have plummeted. The wholesale price of meth in Mexico has more than doubled since January.

As about 90 per cent of all meth consumed in the US is sourced in Mexico, meth prices are probably doing the same in the US too. Meanwhile, Colombian narcos are struggling to ship cocaine to Europe due to the shutdown of transatlantic air travel.

There are already signs of a supply shock: anecdotally, the London retail price per gramme is up 10 per cent since late March. Even when drugs do reach consumer markets, traditional distribution channels such as bars and clubs are shut.

In Chicago, drug arrests, a proxy of retail market activity, has fallen 42 per cent over the past month. Covid-19 will not bankrupt Latin America’s drug gangs, among the biggest players in the global trade. After all, their annual export income is thought to as high as $20bn.

Still, it is the biggest financial crunch they have ever faced.Diversification is one solution. In Colombia and Venezuela, drug traffickers are already big players in illegal mining. In Mexico, fuel theft and human trafficking are likewise significant sources of income.

In Brazil, prison gangs such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital have long run a diverse portfolio of criminal undertakings, such as prostitution.However, these business lines have problems too. Tightly closed borders and restricted travel makes human trafficking harder.

Mexican fuel theft, worth $3bn a year, is not a great moneymaker when gasoline demand has collapsed. As for extortion, who can gangs shake down when most businesses are closed? Kidnapping, usually a fail-safe income source, is next to impossible when most potential victims are quarantined at home.

Even humdrum street crime is suffering. In some Argentine provinces, robberies have dropped as much as 90 per cent. Muggings in Mexico City are meanwhile expected to fall 10 per cent in April due to movement restrictions; a full-scale lockdown would cut them by 65 per cent, forecasts the crime-mapping company Tierra that I work for.

Muscling into pharmaceutical drugs and medical supplies, as some European and Asian gangs seem to be doing, is an attractive alternative. But setting up the needed logistics amid high competition for such goods is difficult and takes time.

Such conditions makes this the perfect moment for security forces to try to take out regional drug trafficking networks. Indeed, Washington’s recent decision to increase US counterdrug operations in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific builds on Pentagon plans that, fortuitously, were already in place.

But such efforts are unlikely to be effective if local governments do not raise their game. That is not happening currently, as security forces are overwhelmed by the pandemic. In Mexico, funds earmarked for police vetting and training are being used to buy personal protection equipment. Brazil has seen mass prison breakouts.

In Peru, more than 120 police officers have caught the virus. Where the state falls short, organised crime is stepping in. Mexico’s Gulf Cartel is distributing food in one border town. In El Salvador, the MS-13 gang is even enforcing lockdown measures; remarkably, one of the world’s most violent countries has seen days without any murders.

With borders closed, most people at home and gangs’ business models in tatters, there has never been a better time for governments in Latin America and elsewhere to beat back organised crime. For the most part, though, they are not even trying. That is more than a missed opportunity: it is a tragedy.


The writer is a security analyst and former Mexican intelligence officer