Illegal drug trade in Colombia
The drug barons of Colombia, such as Pablo Escobar and José Rodríguez Gacha, were long considered by authorities to be among the most dangerous, wealthy, and powerful men in the world.
[6] The level of drug-related violence was halved in the last 10 years and dropped below that of countries like Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago.
[citation needed] Drug traffickers have resisted those actions by killing five presidential candidates Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, Jaime Pardo Leal, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, Alvaro Gómez Hurtado and Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, by allegedly planning and financing the Palace of Justice siege that left 11 of the 25 Supreme Court Justices dead, by killing over 3,000 members of the Union Patriótica political party, and by assassinating countless police officers, judges and witnesses.
Which as of 2011 it was estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) that 63,330 homes were involved in the cultivation process of the coca leaf.
Most of the heroin produced in Colombia is derived from opium poppies grown in the southwestern region of the country, specifically in Nariño, which border Ecuador.
This decline is a part of a larger regional trend, as the overall area of opium poppy cultivation in Latin America and the Caribbean decreased by 18% during the same period.
Sexually transmitted diseases are spread at a rapid pace and contribute to the workers' inability to heal from the flesh wounds and their incapability of survival outside of this environment.
[24] The few positive outcomes from the manufacturing of cocaine include temporarily providing a job for a family struggling financially and raising Colombia's GDP and standard of living.
This was supported by some American politicians, but environmentalists were among those who fiercely objected to the use of the fungus, which causes the plant sickness fusarium wilt, citing broad ecological risks that it could endanger food crops and livestock.
Some psychoactive drugs were already grown in Colombia at limited level by local indigenous groups, who mostly employed marijuana and coca leaves for ceremonial and traditional medical uses as part of their culture.
The Medellín Cartel was responsible for the murders of hundreds of people, including government officials, politicians, law enforcement members, journalists, relatives of same, and innocent bystanders.
The profits of kidnapping helped finance the ring's move to drug trafficking, originally beginning in Marijuana and eventually spreading to cocaine.
After the collapse of the cartel, it was discovered it was wiretapping phone calls made into and out of Bogotá,[31][32] and was engaged in money laundering using numerous front companies spread throughout Colombia.
The chiefs of the Norte del Valle cartel included Diego León Montoya Sánchez, Wilber Varela and Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía.
Of the original leaders of the cartel, Wilber Varela was the last remaining member being sought by the authorities, but was found dead on January 31, 2008.
[33] The Norte del Valle cartel is estimated to have exported more than 1.2 million pounds – or 500 metric tons – of cocaine worth in excess of $10 billion from Colombia to Mexico and ultimately to the United States for resale.
Indictments filed in the United States charge the Norte del Valle cartel with using violence and brutality to further its goals, including the murder of rivals, individuals who failed to pay for cocaine, and associates who were believed to be working as informants.
The organization transshipped significant amounts of cocaine to the United States and Europe via the smuggling routes it controlled from Colombia's North Coast through the Caribbean.
DEA Intelligence indicated that traffickers paid taxes to Gamboa's organization in order to be allowed to ship drugs out of the North Coast.
On March 13, 2003, Caracol pleaded guilty to participating in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy that smuggled tens of thousands of kilograms of cocaine into New York and other cities.
As such, these cartels protect their business by way of illegal paramilitary groups that act as non-state actors and provide financial capital to government officials, generating a corrupt political system.
The goal of this program is to gain the support of farmers in the voluntary eradication of illegal crops in an attempt to recover forest life and create a healthy ecosystem in these vulnerable areas.
This process showcases an attempt to improve the socio-economic conditions for domestic farmers by increasing their income by purchasing non-illicit crops and rewarding them for their efforts in environmental conservation.
[42] Since 2003, Human Rights Watch stated that, according to their Colombian intelligence sources, "40 percent of the country's total cocaine exports" were controlled by these paramilitaries.
[50][51] Many demobilized paramilitaries received recruitment offers, were threatened into joining the new organizations or have simultaneously rearmed and remained in government reintegration programs.
[51] The main emerging criminal and paramilitary organizations are known as: These groups continue to be involved in the drug trade, commit widespread human rights abuses, engage in forced displacement and undermine democratic legitimacy in other ways, both in collusion with and opposition to FARC-EP guerrillas.
This was a major problem for the cartels since the drug traffickers had little to no access to their local power, resources, or influence while in the US, and a trial there would most likely lead to imprisonment.
Among the staunch supporters of the extradition treaty were Colombian Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Police Officer Jaime Ramírez and numerous Supreme Court Judges.
"The strengthening of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) during the 1990s was an unintended consequence of a series of tactical successes in U.S. anti-drug policies.
