Central America has ideal agricultural conditions for growing the coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, a fact that Mexican drug cartels have begun to take advantage of.
Honduras and Guatemala are the countries in the region with the most progress in coca production, according to a study published by the specialized journal Environmental Research Letters, and experts consulted by the Voice of America.
The quality of the soil, the climate and the Central American topography have allowed “experimental crops” of the leaf to proliferate in these countries since 2017, and have been increasing.
“Since 2017, organized criminal groups (not small owners) have been establishing coca plantations in Central America for the production of cocaine,” says the study, signed by eight researchers and environmental experts from several countries.
This “has broken South America’s long monopoly on coca leaf production for the global cocaine trade and has raised concerns about future expansion in the isthmus,” the investigation adds.
According to reports on the eradication of coca plantations, between 2017 and 2022 in Honduras, 36 coca leaf plantations were destroyed. Guatemala destroyed 17 in the same period.
“This expansion is already quite strong in Central America, especially in Honduras, which has very large plantations and laboratories where they grow the coca leaf and process it into base paste or cocaine. “This is not a hypothesis, it is a reality,” he told the VOA Douglas Farah, investigator of organized crime in Latin America.
The criminal groups behind the expansion of coca leaf crops in the region are the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) in alliance with Mexican cartels, including Jalisco Nueva Generación.
It is presumed that Mexican criminal groups are financing coca plantations in Central America to reduce their dependence on Colombian exporters; reduce the costs and risks of long-distance drug transshipment and increase profits.
“These coca leaf crops in Honduras and Guatemala have been found in jungle areas, where it is favorable for them to plant due to their difficult access,” he added to the VOAMarvin Reyes, who was a police investigator in El Salvador and now leads a movement of police officers.
According to the study published in Environmental Research Letters, the purpose of coca crops in Central America is to supply raw material or coca paste to laboratories that manufacture cocaine powder in Mexico and possibly abroad.
“These plantations represent the first time, since 1961, that commercial coca cultivation for the illegal production of cocaine has remained outside of South America, suggesting a new spatial dynamic in the global drug supply chain,” pointed out the World Drug Report 2023from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
Synthetic drugs do not reduce coca planting
Although the consumption of synthetic drugs has increased in the United States, according to authorities, there is still demand for cocaine in the global market.
Initially, the change in the pattern of drug consumption in the US generated expectations – even from Colombian President Gustavo Petro – about a possible reduction in cocaine production in 2023.
But the reality is that the UNODC reflects a 10% increase in coca leaf crops in 2024 compared to the previous year, reaching a new record of 253,000 hectares planted.
“The European market in terms of coca is much more important now than the market in the United States, because coca consumption in the United States has decreased and synthetic drug consumption has increased,” he explained to the VOA organized crime investigator Douglas Farah, researcher
According to their own research, the Atlantic ports in the Central American region are going to become very important due to their connection with Europe.
At least 47% of northern Central America with access to the Atlantic – Honduras, Guatemala and Belize – has favorable characteristics for coca cultivation.
The study published in Environmental Research Letters found that coca leaf production in the Central American region is located in a similar elevation range to that of Colombia’s coca plantations.
Additionally, the amount of rainfall and climate in both regions are usually similar.
Currently, coca, as the raw ingredient of cocaine, is classified as a narcotic of the List I banned worldwide since 1961.
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