On March 18, 2007 a United States Coast Guard C-130 maritime patrol aircraft spotted the Panamanian flagged motor vessel Gatun approximately 20 miles southwest of Isla de Coiba, Panama. The Coast Guard obtained flag-state consent to board the vessel through a maritime agreement between the US and Panamanian governments. A Coast Guard boarding team conducted a search and discovered cocaine hidden in two containers aboard the ship. It was subsequently learned that the US Coast Guard (USCG) and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) worked cooperatively in making a maritime record seizure of approximately 42,845 pounds of cocaine, worth approximately US$ 270 million.
Expanding Threat
US officials have learned that the 42,845 pounds of cocaine was destined for Mexican drug traffickers, corroborating the belief that Mexican drug lords are extending their drug business enterprises well outside of Mexico. International efforts to combat illegal narcotics production and distribution has shifted drug activities from country to country and accelerated the growth of transnational criminal organizations in the long-term. As Mexican President Felipe Calderon accelerates security initiatives against Mexican cartels, drug cartels will increasingly search-out alternative routes and bases for drug trafficking operations.
This expansion threat not only includes developing epicenters for their business in countries other than Mexico, which in turn will be detrimental to the long-term stability of the region, but also involves a reliance on shipping and distribution that may, in the future, need to evade Mexico’s borders entirely. The Peruvian coastline, an area increasingly inhabited by Mexican cartels, for example, offers twenty-three maritime ports of which five are considered major operating ports. Mexican drug trafficking cartels prize these ports due to the relative ease in which illicit cargo can be placed inconspicuously within authorized container shipments. Record cocaine shipments bound for the US and Mexico highlight, not only increased Mexican cartel presence, but a corresponding increase in drug-lab efficiency and shipping sophistication throughout the region (Previous Report).
Furthermore, the smuggling of illicit drugs through Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands in maritime cargo is expected to increase in the near-term. The Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement passed in 2005 is designed to eliminate trade barriers among the cosignatories. The agreement will be implemented by Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua over the next year. Also, the construction of the Port of the Americas in Ponce, Puerto Rico, is scheduled for completion in the next two to three years. As commercial activity through the Caribbean increases, drug cartels will divert additional drug flow away from the Central America-Mexico land corridor to the Caribbean corridor, particularly Puerto Rico (source). This maritime route, which was the predominate trafficking route in the early 1980’s, will again gain prominence as the route of choice.
Responding to the Maritime Threat
Maritime drug trafficking generates vast amounts of money for international drug cartels, and will continue to expand as cartels create new trafficking hubs throughout Latin America. Despite US law enforcement successes against drug trafficking cartels, including record drug seizures in 2005, drug traffickers have continued to adjust their route choices and methods to avoid detection. These shifting trafficking patterns make it difficult for continued and sustained success by law enforcement.
For example, drug traffickers have creatively redrawn routes and sent fishing vessels far out into the Eastern Pacific to serve as “refuelers” for go-fast speedboats that are trying to circumvent the USCG. As a response, the Coast Guard has begun boarding fishing vessels that are operating outside of their officially documented purpose or beyond fishing zones, and they now have the means and the authority to render any excess fuel onboard unusable. Additionally, the expansion of armed counter-drug helicopter capabilities in 2006 has helped reduce the number of confirmed and suspected go-fast smuggling events. Maritime drug trafficking still thrives, however, as the USCG is limited to certain sections of the vast oceans, and is often re-prioritized to other needs, such as seen during Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
Only expanding the level of cooperation with partner nations across the entire transit zone will deny traffickers the freedom of movement they still enjoy within the territorial waters of nations that do not have the means to interdict them. Building on the success of existing maritime bilateral agreements (ie. Colombia, El Salvador, Panama, Ecuador), similar arrangements are needed throughout the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean transit zones to further tackle drug trafficking. Rampant corruption will also need to be curtailed for any sustained agreements to be successful.
Future Projections
The US is currently attempting to improve intelligence coordination and support of counter-drug operations in the US arrival zones. In 2007, port security will be strengthened and redeveloped, as will intelligence sharing between agencies such as the DEA and the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). Law enforcement has developed intelligence structures and processes that will extract information from open investigative files, fuse it with other national data and dissiminate it to interested personnel. This resulting fused intelligence product will enhance counter-drug detection and monitoring (source).
The National Drug Control Strategy for 2007 calls for an aggressive 40 percent transit zone interdiction goal. If this level of interdiction is achieved it will constitute the largest transit zone disruption of the illicit drug market to date. However, with the expected increase in smuggling it may do little to halt the overall trafficking of drugs through US borders.