News Pushing productive coca seeds, Mexican cartels reshape Colombia's drug industry

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Luis Jaime Acosta
Reuters
5/9/2022

TUMACO/NORTE DE SANTANDER, Colombia May 9 (Reuters) - Emissaries of Mexican drug cartels are involving themselves more closely in cocaine production in Colombia, paying farmers in advance and pushing cultivation of highly-productive strains, coca growers, security officials and rights activists say.

Top Mexican cartels like Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generacion - which have large areas of influence within Mexico and engage in brutal violence for control of drug routes - have long purchased cocaine from Colombia's guerrilla groups and crime gangs.


But while they once operated as discrete buyers - and still avoid direct engagement in the competition for their business - the increasing presence of emissaries is noticeable in several cocaine-producing areas, residents and farmers told Reuters.

The cartels have driven significant changes in the varieties of coca being planted, sending cocaine production higher, Colombia's anti-narcotic police say. These developments in how coca is grown have contributed to the increased quantity and purity of cocaine trafficked to both the United States and Europe, the police say.


The increased output from new coca strains is visible in figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, with potential cocaine output rising over the last three years even as the planted area decreases.........

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Insight: Pushing productive coca seeds, Mexican cartels reshape Colombia's drug industry

Emissaries of Mexican drug cartels are involving themselves more closely in cocaine production in Colombia, paying farmers in advance and pushing cultivation of highly-productive strains, coca growers, security officials and rights activists say.

www.reuters.com