Venezuela may be collapsing but their cocaine trafficking isn’t. In fact, it’s soaring – literally.

The country has had an array of economic and political issues of late, but it seems that drug exporting to the US is on its way up. Especially in the form of cocaine.

A month-long investigation done by CNN found a rise in suspected drug flights from Venezuela, from two flights per week in 2017 to nearly daily in 2018.

In previous years, planes used to depart from Venezuela’s remote southern jungle regions. In recent years,  planes are departing from more developed regions to reduce flying time.

One US official estimated that in 2018 alone, 240 metric tons (265 tons for US readers) of cocaine crossed into Venezuela from Colombia to be flown out of the country. Other officials involved in combating the drug trade said that estimate was conservative. So much pure Colombian cocaine, when cut and distributed, could fetch around $39 billion on the streets of the US, according to an estimate by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for CNN.

And US and other regional officials say it’s Venezuela’s own military and political elite who are facilitating the passage of drugs in and out of the country on hundreds of tiny, unmarked planes.

…Every shipment of cocaine from South America is so lucrative that the planes flown by traffickers are cheap in comparison; most are used only once and then discarded or set on fire upon arrival.

A defector from the Venezuelan border patrol told CNN that it was once his task to pick out trucks carrying traffickers’ cocaine and ensure they passed through the border swiftly. He said this happened as often as three times a week, during the five-year period he served in the border region.

“The cars that crossed with both weapons and drugs were pick-up (trucks),” the defector told CNN, hiding his identity and location for fear of reprisals. “We would be told the color and make of the truck, and when (it would come) — usually at just after dawn or dusk.”

For more on the situation in Venezuela go here.

[source:cnn]