The illegal drug balloon
Reports are that illegal drugs are now coming from the northern Caribbean as smugglers try to evade the authorities. The drug mules no longer speak Spanish
Police and Customs, with help from international drug interdiction forces operating in the Caribbean, have shut down the traditional routes used by drug runners, and are now uncovering and shutting down several new routes.
A Customs source told Tntinsider that there has been a noticeable shift in the flow of drugs, estimated as an annual multi- billion dollar trade, from the major suppliers in South America and the Caribbean to the major consumers in North America and Europe.
Illegal drugs were being funnelled southwards from the northern Caribbean before being sent to major markets in the North to throw drug interdiction units off the scent of major drug movements through the Caribbean.
According to the source, drug mules were switching routes, with some of them travelling to the Southern Caribbean islands to ward off suspicion. Instead of going to the US or some other main drug market to the north of the Caribbean, the mules started taking trips south to other Caribbean territories in which they are not well-known.
When customs got wind of this new movement of illegal drugs, authorities in Trinidad, Barbados, and other parts of the Eastern Caribbean started focusing on travellers from Jamaica, The Bahamas, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Previously, these mules would have aroused little suspicion as they passed through Eastern Caribbean airports as they were not destined north for the US, Canada, or Europe.
In the Eastern Caribbean, the illegal drugs were given to newly hired mules. New mules on a new route are harder to detect. Tntinsider learned that these new arrangements were set up by the South American cartels, and supervised by local drug lords on the payrolls of these cartels.
However, the new arrangements involving Eastern Caribbean states are being shut down rapidly as police and customs officials from almost every Caribbean territory, with international help.
Tntinsider was told that within the last 18 months, dozens of travellers from Jamaica have been held in Trinidad and other parts of the Eastern Caribbean trying to smuggle large quantities of drugs with a street value of millions of dollars.
The arrests are reportedly reducing the flow of drugs through the region. It may just be the tip of the iceberg in a multi-billion dollar trans-shipment but officials are confident that they can eradicate the trade.
The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had estimated that over 2,000 kilogrammes monthly of cocaine were shipped to Trinidad from Venezuela by large boats and pirogues with some 15 tonnes being brought across the Orinoco River monthly.
DEA special agent John Gilbride, acknowledging the new strategy of the re-routing of drugs, said “combating drug trafficking is like squeezing a balloon.”
“You squeeze on one area and it pops up in another place.”