Cartel Turns Amazon Boarder into Free Passage for Drugs

03/13/2017 - 11h35

The massacre of dozens of inmates carried out by the criminal gang Familia do Norte (FDN) in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, on New Year's led to a wave of deaths and tension in the coutry's jails. However, on the main route through which cocaine enters the country to be taken to the North and Northeast regions, the local jail remained quiet under the control of the FDN.

In Tabatinga, a city with 62,000 inhabitants on the boarder of Brazil, Peru and Colombia, authorities admit that the FDN commands the local jail as well as the flow of drugs into Brazil, a business that transacts R$ 5.7 billion a year.

The strong presence of the FDN in Tabatinga, since at least 2014, is the new chapter of nearly four decades of drug trafficking in the region, during which the activity became the main local economic activity.

It all started at the beginning of the 1980s, when the region became an important route for Peruvian coca leaves entering Colombia to be refined and sent to the U.S.

By the mid-2000s, Colombia had managed to retake control of the territory and reduce violence.

On the Peruvian side, new technology allowed coca plants to be grown and processed in the humidity of the Amazon in 2006. Also Brazil became the main destination of the cocaine produced in the region.

Although the area can only be accessed by airplane or boat, drug trafficking benefits from the informal economy, the intense circulation of people, the several routes available, the absence of law enforcement on the Peruvian side and major inspection flaws in Brazil.

"Criminals regard the Anzol base as a joke," says the state police commander in Tabatinga, Huoney Herlon Gomes.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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