CIA: Intelligence Report DCI
Crime and Narcotics Center 23 February, 1998
Changing Drug Trade in the Americas
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| Summary Antidrug gains and shifting markets have forced change on the illicit cocaine industry in Latin America. The disruption of the Cali and Medellin mafias has led to the formation of more diverse trafficking groups. Resistance to the Andean narcotics "airbridge" through air interdiction efforts over Peru has caused the large-scale, and perhaps permanent, shift in coca production to neighboring Colombia. Colombia’s growing self-sufficiency in coca derivatives and a continued strong European demand for cocaine have helped spur an increase in finished drug processing and export from Bolivia that, in turn, have made Brazil and the Southern Cone countries more important to international drug movements. • The US interdiction focus along the southwest border has led Mexican kingpin organizations to adjust their smuggling methods and to a revival in Colombian interest in moving drugs through the Caribbean. • The resurgence in consumer interest in heroin has led traffickers in Colombia and Mexico to expand their product lines into opiates—most all of which are US bound. REDACTED WORD Such changes collectively reflect progress by the United States and its allies in the region in disrupting the activities of cocaine criminals – some of whom are changing fundamentally the way they do business. Nonetheless, the highly adaptive industry remains robust and prosperous, and the availability of cocaine to drug consumers so far has been little altered. The changes, moreover, are producing an industry that is less well known to antidrug forces and thus more resilient to their routine pressures. • Several critical intelligence gaps may make the pace of recent counternarcotics successes difficult to sustain, and efforts to till gaps could at least temporarily force anti-drug units to divert their time and attention away from direct actions against traffickers. REDACTED WORD Shifting Coca and Cocaine Production REDACTED WORD Air interdiction efforts and the disruption of the Call drug mafia have dramatically upset the normal production and marketing process for Andean coca derivatives. The collapse of Peru’s coca economy has forced abandonment of many farms there, only to be offset by exploding new cultivation in Colombia at plantations notable for their larger size and use of modern agricultural practices. Because of the shift, Colombia for the first time has surpassed Peru as the largest cultivator nation. Colombian self-sufficiency for coca and a strong European demand have forced Bolivian traffickers to step up production of finished cocaine for export; they are being aided by significant new coca plantings that have offset much of Bolivia’s near-record crop eradication results. REDACTED WORD Collapsing Coca Production in Peru. The air interdiction surge in Peru, which began in March 1995, has disrupted the ability of Colombian drug traffickers to obtain reliable supplies of coca derivatives from Peru. Peruvian attacks on suspected drug-carrying planes have provided a strong disincentive to narcotics pilots, even though the traffickers correspondingly have offered them more money to offset the dangers, REDACTED WORDS As a result of the disruptions, the Peruvian coca supply has become less reliable to Colombian traffickers, and those seeking to meet their own cocaine commitments abroad are almost certainly turning to more reliable local suppliers of coca derivatives. The corresponding decline in Colombian purchases in Peru has caused a glut in coca products there, which have sold for near-record-low prices. The decline in Colombian purchasing has devastated Peru’s once-booming coca economy, spurring sizable farmer migrations from the principal cultivation areas. This trend has led to a substantial decline in Peruvian coca production. REDACTED PARAGRAPH The impact of interdiction on Peru’s coca economy may have reached its peak, however. Coca prices are rising again and in recent months have reached what the US Embassy says is the profitability threshold for small-scale farmers for the first time since the current interdiction surge began. The rise is most likely the result of a too rapid cultivation decline for current demand levels; the drop has been enough that available leaf has fallen in short supply and is therefore more valuable. If prices continue at profitable levels, we believe the rapid abandonment of coca fields will slow or halt in coming months. • Peru’s resumption of mature crop eradication in 1996 after a seven-year hiatus is having only marginal impact on the coca supply. REDACTED WORDS Peru eradicated only about 5 percent of its 1997 coca crop, and a considerable portion of that reportedly destroyed was abandoned or otherwise unproductive. REDACTED WORD While future price rises could slow further field abandonment, they are unlikely to reverse quickly the damage already inflicted to Peru’s coca economy. According to press reports, many of the farmers who have abandoned their fields have returned to native lands outside coca producing zones in search of alternative employment. Imagery, moreover, shows that many abandoned fields are overgrown, and substantial labor would be required to return them to full productive capacity. Soil depletion from years of cultivating the same land would make refurbishing some former farms undesirable at any rate and thus would compel many returning farmers to plant anew; those that do so would earn no income until newly planted bushes reached productive maturity in about two years. • Many of these farmers would be unlikely to risk the expense or uncertainty of returning to coca production unless they became convinced that coca prices would escalate to past highs and stay above the cost of production for an extended period. • Because of Colombian cultivation increases, the Colombian mafias would be unlikely to repeat their past practice of providing seedlings and loaning cash to peasants to encourage them to start new coca farms. Exploding New Growth in Colombia. The reluctance of Colombian traffickers to depend on an unreliable Peruvian coca supply has been a critical factor in an explosive increase in cultivation in Colombia. REDACTED WORDS the area planted in coca increased by 18 percent, to 79,500 hectares, which was preceded by an even bigger increase of 32 percent in 1996. Major increases have come despite the aggressive use of herbicides by Colombian police – the only such force in the Andes to eradicate drug crops by air. Unlike those in Peru and Bolivia, Colombian coca fields are large and frequently are collocated with cocaine base laboratories, suggesting that they are being maintained by hired plantation labor – not individual peasant farmers. Moreover, at least some of the new fields are being sowed with higher yielding strains of coca typically found in Peru and Bolivia. • CIA estimates that the increase in cultivation in Colombia over the past two years resulted in an increased cocaine potential from 80 metric tons to 125 metric tons, nearly enough to offset the 135-metric-ton drop in cocaine potential in Peru. • Virtually all new coca plantings have come in areas where government spray aircraft cannot easily operate because of sustained resistance from leftist guerrillas and the long distances involved from secure staging bases. REDACTED WORDS Holding Against the Tide in Bolivia. Bolivia’s coca industry has changed less than those in Colombia and Peru. Near-record eradication of mature cultivation in the Chapare growing region somewhat outpaced the robust planting of new fields in Bolivia in 1997. That, combined with uncompelled reductions in Bolivia’s two legal growing areas, the Yungas and the Apolo regions, helped Bolivia reduce net cultivation last year by 5 percent. • The modest reduction continues the trend of only minor fluctuations in cultivation, unlike the wilder swings observed in Peru and Colombia in recent years; net cultivation in Bolivia has fluctuated no more than 7,400 hectares – about 16 percent of that currently grown—at any time since 1988. REDACTED WORDS Such apparent progress against the Bolivian coca supply may be misleading, however. While eradication contributed to a 4-percent decline in cultivation in the Chapare region, there was a nearly equal 3-percent reduction in the Yungas – the largest legal growing area, where no eradication was attempted at all – and a substantial uncompelled reduction in the less significant Apolo growing region. Farmers abandoned fields in these traditional growing regions probably because bushes had exceeded their productive life span. Prices for raw coca during this period were high, suggesting that market factors were not responsible. Moreover, at least some of the fields destroyed in the Chapare were planted in coca that was nearing its maximum 10-to 15-year productive life span and might have been abandoned soon anyway.3 • While much of the eradication in the Chapare was compulsory, the government continued to pay farmers $2,500 in compensation for each hectare destroyed. Newly planted fields are not productive for about two years, so the payments almost certainly helped some farmers sustain their families until future crops can be harvested. REDACTED WORDS The Changing Face of the Drug Trade REDACTED WORD The arrests or deaths of the Colombian kingpins from Cali and Medellin have benefitted formerly subordinate groups and helped Mexican traffickers consolidate a greater share of the international business. They also have spurred more finished cocaine deals between Bolivian traffickers and a host of criminal groups from Europe and Africa. REDACTED WORDS Diversity Among Andean Trafficking Organizations. The disruption of the Colombian Cali mafia in 1995 and 1996 and the earlier dismantlement of the Medellin cartel have created greater opportunity for other trafficking organizations to develop their businesses. A number of groups from northern Valle de Cauca Department and along the northern Caribbean coast have expanded their portfolios and a new "cartel" has been formed with the help of violent paramilitary groups operating in the so-called "plains" region of Colombia east of the Andes REDACTED WORDS REDACTED HALF-PARAGRAPH severa1 Cali-based traffickers, perhaps including some who are in jail, continue to make international drug deals but at levels below those before the arrests. Traffickers from the northern Valle de Cauca, meanwhile, who once operated in the shadows of the Cali mafia, have risen in prominence. • Arcangel and Luis Fernando Henao Montoya continue to produce large amounts of cocaine for shipment to the United States and Europe REDACTED WORDS The arrest last fall of brother Jose appears not to nave seriously impeded Arcangel"s and Luis’s drug activities. • Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez, a cousin of the Henao Montoya brothers, dominates much of the Colombian purchases of cocaine base from Peru and has ties to Mexican traffickers, according to a foreign government service. • Raul Grajales Lemos and Luis Alfredo Grajales Posso ship cocaine to the United States through Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, and Central America REDACTED WORDS The Grajales family reportedly owns some 150 commercial companies, including department stores and wineries that bear the family name. REDACTED WORDS The rise to power of traffickers from Colombia’s northern coast and the withdrawal of the US military cordon around Haiti has led to a resurgence in Colombian-sponsored trafficking along Caribbean routes REDACTED WORDS REDACTED WORDS North coast groups reportedly use commercial vessels as well as multi-engined speedboats that are often difficult to detect and even harder to catch while moving cocaine – often staging from hideaways in northern Venezuela. • The most significant of the Colombian north coast groups is headed by Alberto Orlandez Gamboa, who is also known by the alias "Caracol." REDACTED WORDS Caracol coordinates trans-Carribean shipments on behalf of major Colombian cocaine producers to drug groups in Hispaniola and the Lesser Antilles. • The Coneo Rios family relies on its extensive drug networks in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to ship drugs to the United States. REDACTED WORDS Fernando Alfonso Burgos-Martinez, a key ally of the Coneo Rios family, coordinates Colombian cocaine movements through Haiti. REDACTED WORDS REDACTED PARAGRAPH Outside Colombia, Bolivian traffickers have reacted to the Colombians growing self-sufficiency for coca derivatives to step up their own independent manufacture and international marketing of cocaine. REDACTED WORDS in recent years finished cocaine has constituted from one-third to one-half of ll coca derivatives seized in Bolivia, up from less than 10 percent in each of the years prior to 1995.5 Much of the increased cocaine appears to be bound for Europe, Africa, and the Southern Cone countries: REDACTED WORDS Italian criminals from the Benedetto Santapaulo organization in recent months have expanded illegal operations in Bolivia that almost certainly include cocaine trafficking. Other criminals from Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, and other countries reportedly also are involved in cocaine exports from Bolivia. REDACTED WORDS The Rising Power of Mexican Cartels. Mexican trafficking groups, once the subservient contractors of major Colombian cocaine traffickers, have risen to become equal, or nearly equal, partners in crime. Mexican groups have parlayed their natural access to the expansive southern border of the United States to dominate some 57 percent of all US-bound cocaine shipments. REDACTED WORDS Whereas in years past, when Mexican groups were paid a cash fee for smuggling Colombian-owned drugs, major Mexican cartels often receive a portion of each shipment they receive as payment or they buy the shipment. • To liquidate cocaine acquired from the Colombians, Mexican cartels have developed their own distribution networks in several US cities, REDACTED WORDS according US press reports. REDACTED WORDS REDACTED PARAGRAPH The Juarez cartel, based in the border city Ciudad Juarez, opposite El Paso, Texas, continues to be the most powerful Mexican trafficking group, despite the unexpected death last summer of founder and kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The cartel exploits an impressive array of corrupt police, military, and political officials to maintain the safety of its drug operations, even though military counterdrug forces have significantly increased their pressure on the group. REDACTED WORDS Despite considerable score-settling violence in Juarez, the cartel is continuing to operate efficiently in the wake of Carrillo Fuentes’s death. It says that other cartel leaders, such as Eduardo Gonzales Qunarte and Juan Esparragoza, are not challenging the right of Carillo Fuentes’s brother Vicente to inherit leadership of the organization. • Mexico’s top antidrug cop, however, has claimed publicly that succession of the Juarez cartel is not clear and that encroachments from rival groups may be responsible for continuing Juarez-area violence. REDACTED WORDS REDACTED PARAGRAPH The Tijuana cartel, headed by brothers Ramon and Benjamin Arrellano Felix, has earned a reputation as the most violent of Mexican trafficking gangs. The group exploits its ties to US youth gangs to dominate smuggling across the border of southern California from San Diego to Yuma from its Tijuana stronghold, according to press reports, and reportedly uses violence and intimidation to challenge rival grout for control of drug operations in Mexicali. • The Tijuana cartel is the group best positioned to exploit any loss in influCnce by the Juarez cartel caused by Amado Carillo Fuentes’ death. REDACTED WORDS The Gulf cartel continues to be in disarray since the arrest and extradition to the United States of leader Juan Garcia Abrego in January 1996 and the capture of the long-presumed successor Oscar Malherbe in February 1997. REDACTED WORDS Garcia Abrego brother Humberto has been working to gain control over me cartel since his release from prison under questionable circumstances last February. • At least some of the Gulf cartel’s former "turf had been assumed by the Juarez cartel, according to press reports. REDACTED WORDS Jesus and Luis Amezcua, while only minor players in international cocaine smuggling, dominate much of the hemisphere s supply of metharnphetamines and the precursors needed to manufacture them. The group operates in several Mexican states, including Baja California, Jalisco, and Colima. • The arrest of brother Adan Amezcua in late 1996 and the earlier jailing of Amezcua associate Jaime Ladino appear to have set back but not seriously damaged the group’s operations. REDACTED WORDS Evolving Trafficking Patterns REDACTED WORDS Blockage of the Andean "airbridge" and the arrests of the Cali kingpins are driving forces behind several changes in drug transportation routes and methods. The changes are most evident in Ecuador, Brazil, and the Southern Cone countries, where trafficking is becoming more ensconced. REDACTED WORDS Detours to the Airbridge. The blockage of the air link between Peru and Colombia has led many Peruvian traffickers to shift their routes westward, where the drugs can be exported via ship or driven to Colombia along the Inter-American highway. Increased traffic along the highway has led to a corresponding growth in the importance of Ecuador, a burgeoning crossroads for the Andean cocaine trade. REDACTED SENTENCE traffickers are using Ecuador to stage major cocaine exports to the United States and elsewhere; at one time earlier this year, for example, some 20 tons of cocaine were reported to have been in simultaneous stages of actual or planned movement. REDACTED WORDS Other Peruvian traffickers are moving drugs by river and trail to pick up points near Peru’s frontiers with Brazil and Colombia REDACTED WORDS There Colombian pilots can pick up the cocaine while facing little or no risk of being shot down by Peruvian interceptors. At least a few traffickers in the south of Peru are shipping some of their coca derivatives over land into Bolivia for final processing REDACTED WORDS a move further indicated by the growing symmetry or Peruvian and Bolivian coca prices that suggests a limited merging of the two markets. Although Peru has yet to complement its aggressive air interdiction efforts with an effective means of interdicting drugs on the rivers and land, most Peruvian traffickers seem unwilling to rely heavily on surface transport methods in the jungle regions. • The threat of effective interdiction, banditry, excessive delays, and the potential for spoilage make such routes less attractive than air transfers or movements along the coastal highways. REDACTED WORDS Impact of Increased Bolivian Cocaine Processing. The increase in direct cocaine exports from Bolivia is also prompting important changes in drug routes. REDACTED WORDS many Bolivian traffickers shipping cocaine via rail to Brazil, from where it most likely is being exported directly to Europe or Africa REDACTED WORDS Bolivian cocaine is reaching international smuggling staging areas in Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile. At least some of this cocaine, however, may be reaching the US. • REDACTED WORDS less cocaine is traveling along traditional air routes to Colombia, and US drug enforcement agents say that Colombian traffickers are playing a smaller role in the Bolivian drug trade than in the past. REDACTED WORDS Mexican Search for Independent Cocaine Source. Apparently frustrated by the high cost of Colombian cocaine, several Mexican trafficking organizations have been exploring the possibility of acquiring a cheaper supply in Peru and Bolivia. Mexican traffickers have had only limited success so far, however, probably because Colombian traffickers sabotaged several early efforts by tipping off local police and because the Mexicans continue to lack access to an independent international transportation networks. Key examples of Mexican interest in the non-Colombian source zone include: • In January 1995, Peruvian police dismantled the "Los Nortenos Cartel" in Piura, Peru – a group the US Embassy in Lima says had been shipping multi-ton loads of cocaine to the Mexican Sonora and possibly Juarez cartels. • In September 1995, Peruvian police seized 4.1 tons of finished cocaine on board a Bolivian DC-6 bound for Mexico, which had stopped in Lima to fuel. US anti-drug officials say the cocaine belonged to now deceased Juarez kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes. • An uncorroborated Mexican press report says that Carrillo – who spent most of his remaining months in Chile, according to Chilean press reports REDACTED WORDS was there to build a large-scale laboratory to process Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine base. • Late last year, Peruvian police disbanded a fledgling drug "cartel" operating out of the coastal cities Callao, Pisco, and Nazca. A senior police official told reporters for a local newspaper that the cartel was being formed with the help of Mexicans, who wanted to find a cheaper source for cocaine. REDACTED WORDS While these efforts largely failed, others may soon succeed. Travelers to drug-impacted areas of Peru and Bolivia report an increased presence of Mexican "businessmen" there, and foreign government service reports suggest that negotiations between Mexican traffickers and Bolivian counterparts are continuing. The incentive for the Mexicans to make a direct connection is strong; cocaine that Mexican traffickers buy from Colombian counterparts for thousands of dollars can be purchased for only hundreds directly at the source. REDACTED WORDS Growing Importance of the Latin American Heroin Trade REDACTED WORDS Trafficking groups in Colombia and Mexico in recent years have moved to exploit the resurgence in US consumer interest in heroin. While Latin American-origin opiates constitute only a small fraction of those produced worldwide, they are an important source for US consumers because of their quality and availability. Heroin Production. Potential Latin American heroin output more than doubled between 1993 and 1995 and has stabilized since REDACTED WORDS The amounts produced during those years however, 5 and 11 metric tons respectively, rose from 1.5 to 3 percent of that potentially produced worldwide. Estimated heroin production was virtually unchanged in 1996 and declined slightly last year, from 11 to 10 metric tons – the 1997 figure represented about 2.8 percent of global production. • Colombia, which surpassed Mexico as the region s largest heroin producer in 1995, potentially produced 6 metric tons of heroin last year from the 6,600 hectares of opium poppy under cultivation. • Mexican poppy plants potentially yielded 4 metric tons of heroin from the 4,000 hectares of poppy grown in 1997. Targeting the US Market. While only a small portion of the world s heroin supply comes from Latin America, hemispheric production accounts for a disproportionate share of that available to US consumers REDACTED WORDS • Colombian-origin heroin reportedly dominates opiate sales in the northeastern US, probably because its high purity – enough to allow abusers to snort the drug rather than inject it intravenously – is preferred by many consumers. • Lower purity Mexican "black tar" heroin reportedly dominates several key urban markets in the southwestern United States. REDACTED WORDS Latin American Heroin Organizations. Mexico s polydrug cartels are playing a key role in US-bound heroin shipments. REDACTED WORDS The groups encourage poppy cultivation, process opium gum into heroin, and supervise cross-border shipments of refined drugs. Less is known about Colombian heroin suppliers, however; while major trafficking organizations – including the group led by Vicente Rivera – are involved in international movements of Colombian opiates REDACTED WORDS several less-well-known trafficking groups exist that specialize in heroin production and sale. • Some of the Colombian groups may have ties to counterparts from East Asia, who, because of the similarity in production techniques, appear to have provided the technical know-how the Colombians need to refine high-quality heroin. REDACTED WORDS Outlook REDACTED WORDS Changes in the drug industry reflect the unprecedented impact US-backed anti-drug efforts are having in the region. Whereas in the past several members of major drug trafficking organizations operated with near impunity – often flaunting their excessive wealth and power publicly – most now avoid the public exposure that made their competitors a target for anti-drug efforts. REDACTED WORDS Despite such progress, cocaine trading organizations still reap billions in collective profits, and little intelligence reporting exists to suggest that traffickers in the nearby transit zones are experiencing drug shortages. • The industry, moreover, has proven highly adaptive to change – perhaps much more so than the allied governments, which often are slow to capitalize on their own successes because of resource constraints and bureaucratic inflexibility. REDACTED WORDS Implications for the United States REDACTED WORDS The changing face of the cocaine trade will challenge current antidrug programs: • A more clandestine and diffuse drug industry will require US-backed antidrug forces to focus more of their limited time and resources on acquiring intelligence on emerging antidrug leaders and organizations. • Cultivation shifts between Peru and Colombia are likely to reduce the long-term impact of current air interdiction efforts along the Andean cocaine airbridge and increase the need for Colombia to target internal movements from coca producing areas in southern portions of the country to major cities. The shifts also will add substantially to the war chests of Colombia’s leftist insurgents, who protect farms and drug labs for profit. • Expanded drug routes through Brazil, Venezuela, and the Southern Cones countries – nations with limited anti-drug abilities – will further complicate efforts to monitor and control international drug movements. • Greater domination of trafficking routes in the Caribbean by Colombian traffickers will likely exacerbate corruption among US-supported anti-drug police units there. REDACTED WORDS The changes at the same time will produce some new opportunities to advance counternarcotics goals. • The lack of clear drug leaders in some countries will lead to greater rivalry among aspiring traffickers that police can exploit to disrupt and distract them. • Mexican attempts to secure an independent cocaine supply may lead to more police intelligence tips from jealous Colombian rivals; such tips in the past appear to have been responsible for major drug seizures. • The reduced power of groups such as the Cali mafia – which in the past successfully influenced Colombia’s politics – may make governments in the region more willing to tackle tough anti-drug initiatives. REDACTED WORDS Appendix Key Intelligence Gaps REDACTED WORDThere are many areas in which intelligence collection against the narcotics target is insufficient, but the following are particularly damaging to our understanding of the changes: The Status of the Cali Mafia. The long-term impact of the arrest of mafia leaders on Cali-based drug movements is uncertain. REDACTED WORDS jailed Cali traffickers tried last year to set up a communications mechanism that Would allow them to maintain control over their organizations, but their efforts reportedly were not successful. Nonetheless, each leader receives almost daily visits from lawyers and kin that would allow for the theoretical passage of essential messages to lieutenants outside prison. Reporting appears to indicate that the volume of Cali’s cocaine business is diminished, but how much so remains unanswered; the arrests forced the group to improve its internal security, thereby decreasing the probability that its drug transactions would become known to US intelligence. REDACTED WORDS The Productivity of Colombian Coca. While DEA-sponsored operation "Breakthrough" has provided reliable coca yield data for Peru and the Chapare in Bolivia, the dangers in traveling throughout insurgent-dominated areas of southern Colombia so far have prevented the US Government from conducting adequate science-based coca yield research there. Yield data used and agreed upon by the US Government REDACTED WORDS could be underestimating the potential leaf yield, especially given that coca seedbeds which are associated with higher-yielding varieties of coca REDACTED WORDS They may also underestimate the leaf-to-cocaine conversion ratio. Higher yields would increase the estimate of the amount of cocaine potentially available to consumers worldwide. Plans are being made for a more intensive study of the productivity of Colombian coca. REDACTED WORDS The Command and Control Status of the Juarez Cartel. The leadership succession of the cartel is not well understood, in part because the group had tightened its internal security just months after the arrest early last year of former drug czar Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, a Juarez-cartel collaborator. REDACTED WORDS the succession to Carrillo has been decided, but a senior official of the Attorney General’s office has publicly claimed there is a power struggle ongoing within the group that may be spurring encroachments from the rival Tijuana group. The large amount of drug-related homicides in and near Ciudad Juarez also suggests there could be some competition for supremacy among former Carrillo lieutenants. REDACTED WORDS The Destination of Bolivian Cocaine. The export routes for Bolivian cocaine are not well known. While various information suggests much of the drug is being exported to Europe, at least some amount almost certainly is reaching the United States. Even less well known is the percentage of coca derivatives that are still being shipped to Colombia – formerly the major buyer of Bolivian cocaine base – and the means by which Bolivian drugs reach there. REDACTED WORDS a decline in the use of traditional air routes between countries when compared with years past. REDACTED WORDS The Possibility of Bolivian Drug Kingpins. Increased production of finished cocaine and the growing number of transactions involving foreign criminal enterprises suggest an increase in both the size and power of Bolivian trafficking groups. Nonetheless, current collection efforts, albeit limited, have not revealed the reemergence of kingpin organizations, such as those that operated in Bolivia until the late l980s, when several major traffickers accepted a government surrender offer. |
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| FOOTNOTES: 1. Other factors beside air interdiction—including US-supported alternative development programs, field exhaustion, blight, and Peru’s renewed eradication program—have helped encourage farmers to abandon cultivation, but they do not appear to share interdiction’s responsibility for the dramatic collapse of coca leaf prices. The other factors all tend to diminish the available supply of coca leaf, thus making the remaining supply more, not less, valuable.2. Bolivia’s claimed eradication of 7,026 hectares is subject to US Embassy verification; 3.. REDACTED WORDS Many Chapare fields, however, were planted in coca during the cocaine boom times of the early-to-rnid 1980s and thus are approaching the expected end of their productivity. REDACTED WORDS 4. The violent nature of the group was confirmed late last year, when a paramilitarv unit under its employ inflicted about a dozen casualties on Colombian police. REDACTED WORD 5. REDACTED WORDS the ratio of finished cocaine to other coca derivative forms seized in Bolivia was 47 percent in 1996 and 33 percent for the first 11 months of 1997. |