Criminal Organizations and Illicit Trafficking in Guatemala's Border Communities (original) (raw)

Guatemala faces a growing, potentially existential threat. Territories and routes which once experienced moderate trafficking of goods, humans, and drugs have become superhighways for the transfer of high value products, chemical products, weapons, and cash required by the illicit drug industry. Due to Guatemala’s border with Mexico and a permissive environment for contraband and crime, the country has become a funnel for 90 percent of the cocaine sent from South America to the United States—the largest drug market in the world.1 Contraband routes in Guatemala traditionally controlled by local groups are coming ever more under the control of the Mexican cartels. Around half of the nation’s territory is believed to be under the control of criminal organizations.2 Local criminal organizations have long penetrated the Guatemalan police, army, courts and government, and Guatemala’s gangs are extremely violent. However, the Mexican cartels with their financial resources, military grade weapons, and reputation for indiscriminate killing and brutality have elevated these threats. Today Guatemala and its neighbors Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, have homicide rates among the highest in the world. Guatemala’s murder rate is as high as those during the worst years of the civil wars in the 1980’s. Impunity for traffickers and murderers is the rule, not the exception.