Cocaine Cartels

Social Organization of Cocaine Cartels

Cocaine cartels began to operate in the 1970s as a result of economies of scale in the drug trade. Cartels usually purchase coca grown in isolated regions of Bolivia, Peru, or Colombia, convert the coca to cocaine, and then distribute it at the wholesale level. Retail distribution and local operations are largely controlled by the maras, or gangs, like MS-13 or Los Zetas. Cartels try to operate like multinational corporations, with a hierarchical command structure, operations that transcend borders, and a complex network that is difficult for rivals to penetrate. Cartels also try to form strategic alliances to secure specific markets and penetrate new ones. In Mexico, for instance, the Sinaloa, Valencia, and Juárez cartels joined forces to compete against the Tijuana and Gulf cartels when these two groups became allies. The ultimate goal for cartels, like corporations, is to increase their market share; however, the degree of collaboration among these groups should not be overestimated. Cocaine DTOs are known to engage in bloody turf wars to protect their merchandise and market share.

Recent Changes in Cocaine Trafficking

Starting in the early 1970s, cocaine shipments from the Andean region to the United States and Europe increased, reaching peak levels after the 1980s. Known throughout Latin America as the “lost decade” for severe austerity and debt servicing programs that caused much political turmoil, social upheaval, and economic deprivation, the 1980s were a transformative decade for cocaine smuggling operations. One of the most significant developments during the decade was the alliance of convenience forged between cocaine producers and intransigent insurgencies in Colombia and Peru. These alliances emboldened revolutionary movements in both countries, resulting in unprecedented levels of violence, while the cocaine producers received the protection they needed to for their business to flourish. Since 1990, Andean countries such as Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia have continued to be the source of much of the world's cocaine. The estimated 1,000 tons of cocaine produced in these countries supply some 10 million users in America, Europe, and Oceania, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Two fundamental developments altered cocaine transshipments since the 1980s, and both were results of counternarcotic efforts. First, the United States and regional allies increased efforts to combat narco-guerrillas and disrupt the flow of cocaine. The United States sponsored several counterinsurgency programs involving training and intelligence sharing throughout the Andean regions, primarily in Peru and Colombia. In 2000 the United States unveiled Plan Colombia, a program that would allocate $2.5 billion in an anti-drug and peace-promotion initiative. According to the U.S. State Department, the aid package consisted of five major components: improving governing capacity and respect for human rights, expansion of counter-narcotic operations in southern Colombia, an alternative economic development strategy that would steer farmers away from cultivating coca, narcotic interception, and assistance to Colombia's national police. Combined with the military aid Colombia received from the United States, America provided Colombia with approximately $4.5 billion between 2000 and 2005. One of the effects of Plan Colombia was to disrupt the Medellín “cartel.”

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