Colombia has a sad reputation for being the second largest country in the world – after the Republic of the Congo – with the largest number of criminal organizations and markets, according to the latest biennial report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (known as the Global Initiative -GITOC), the assessed these aspects in the 193 member countries of the United Nations.
Also in the top 10 are two other Latin American countries: Mexico in fourth place and Honduras in tenth place. GITOC scores on a scale of 1 to 10 based on three criteria: scope, extent and impact of criminal markets; structure and influence of criminal actors; and the scale and effectiveness of countries’ resilience measures, which the study defines as the ability to respond to and disrupt organized crime activity as a whole. At the top is the Republic of the Congo with 7.75 and Colombia with 7.66. Mexico’s rating is 7.56 and Honduras’ rating is 6.98.
The countries with the highest crime rates
The report notes that while organized crime targets the most vulnerable communities – 80% of the world’s population lives in countries with high crime rates – “its impact ultimately increases the vulnerability of societies in general”.
Colombia is the world’s top trafficker in cocaine, with a 9.5 out of 10, ahead of Mexico with 9, whose cartels are also responsible for violence. In the criminal markets, Mexico ranks first with 8 points and Colombia is second with 7.2. The exploitation of people is the most pervasive criminal economy in the world; however, illegal mining, arms trafficking, crimes against flora and non-renewable resources, and trafficking in other drugs such as heroin and synthetic drugs are also other criminal markets analyzed by the GITOC study.
Countries in constant conflict like Colombia – even after the signing of the peace deal between the government and FARC guerrillas in 2016 – have a greater propensity for organized crime. Statistics on massacres and social leaders are becoming obsolete at an abysmal rate. The violence has not stopped in recent years. According to the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (INDEPAZ), there were 73 massacres in 2022.
The GITOC study warns that corruption is one of the main causes of organized crime. Illegal economies have not stagnated during the pandemic either. Despite the fact that the world was cramped in 2020 and the legal economy was paralyzed by the restrictions countries imposed to stop the spread of the virus, the study suggests that “criminals were looking for ways to circumvent obstacles and to take advantage of the situation.” The increase in poverty brought on by the pandemic as a result also favored organized crime in Colombia.
In recent years, the Colombian government has killed several commanders of criminal organizations such as the Clan del Golfo, aka Inglaterra, and extradited others such as the drug dealer “Otoniel”. Senator Ariel Ávila warns that the crime-fighting strategy of Iván Duque’s government has not worked. “This strategy of killing, arresting or extraditing is only to gain votes and applause, but it does not cut off organized crime. What Colombia is seeing today is an implosion,” explains Ávila, who has devoted himself to investigating violence and illegal mafia. Another reason Colombia ranks second in the world for crime, Ávila points out, is the rise of illegal economies with the rise of the dollar. “We have a criminal explosion scenario along with an economic boom.” And a third factor that has influenced the proliferation of so many criminal groups is the lack of policies to combat organized crime. “The Duque government had an ideological reading of the issue, it continued to see the country that way when the old FARC were there,” he adds.
According to Jorge Mantilla, conflict director of the Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP ), a think tank for peace and security. “This tended to set aside a growing phenomenon of diversification of illegal economies, where not only coca, but other economies such as illegal mining, but especially extortion, expanded and consolidated without any effective part of the state responding . It’s a country that has little capacity to fight organized crime,” he explains.
Impunity is a big driver for criminal gangs. When the judiciary fails to investigate or solve the killings of social leaders or peace signers, illegal groups have more incentive to continue killing as there is no punishment or action to stem them. Corruption within government agencies is another problem, although when fighting criminal groups, they also secretly ally with them not to fight them. “Colombia ranks second in this index because organized crime has been able to co-opt the state and adopt public management scenarios. Organized crime has operated from the state to further private interests and this is obviously associated with very high rates of impunity where there are very few deterrents or incentives not to commit crimes,” Mantilla acknowledges. Although the country has reduced its rate of homicides, forced displacement and other crimes as a result of the peace agreement signed with the FARC in 2016, it has risen again. “We are at a very similar level of violence as in 2011. 2021 was the year with the most forced evictions in the last decade,” the researcher recalls.
These are the ten countries in the world with the largest number of criminal organizations and markets
The recent murder of two journalists in the Caribbean department of Magdalena in the north-east of the country, the increasing killings of social leaders and the dismembered bodies that have turned up in garbage bags in Bogotá have unsettled the population. According to Laura Vanesa Prieto, a researcher at the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares), violence has increased in the Colombian capital. “What is happening in Bogotá is clearly the execution of exemplary homicides, a criminal repertoire to create social and territorial control,” says Prieto, drawing attention to a particular fact: some of the cities most prone to organized crime and illegal Economy affected are in the center of Bogotá, where the state is said to have greater control since most of the government offices are located there. “This indicates that the territorial control of these organizations is very large, and secondly, the reactivation of illegal economies has created such a dispute over rents that the people belonging to these groups murder each other in order to fully collect these rents. “, Explain. Police have pointed out that the Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan criminal organization – is responsible for the recent dismemberment of bodies in Bogotá.
It is not certain how many criminal gangs exist in Colombia; The names and numbers vary depending on who keeps the accounts. Senator Ávila believes that there are at least 50 criminal organizations in Colombia, including the FARC dissidents (forming different groups and fronts), the Clan del Golfo, Los Pelusos, Los Rastrojos and the guerrilla group ELN (National Liberation Army). , among other things.
An IFJ report on the final years of the Duque government’s leadership suggests that the policy of “decapitation of criminal organizations” was inadequate. In fact, he warns that politics has been more focused on hitting criminal groups than protecting citizens. “A security policy that generates an increase in violence cannot be considered successful if it reflects not only an inability to protect, but also a lack of dissuasive factors on the part of the state towards the armed groups and a confusion of priorities.” can be found in the report. “Colombia ranks so high in this index because of the capacity these groups have, with the low capacity that the state has to match them,” concludes IFJ’s Mantilla.
Illegal economies leave behind multi-million dollar revenues in Colombia and have a great ability to adapt and blend into legal economies. Laura Vanesa Prieto, a researcher at Fundación Pares, illustrates this with places whose facade is legal, but behind the doors there are criminal businesses, making these markets much more difficult to identify. “It is a major challenge for this new administration to ensure that the state has an effective presence in all places to protect the population, because these exemplary repertoires of violence or murder create a breakdown in the social fabric: they create fear, and that fear causes people not to get in touch,” analyzes Prieto.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the important information about current events in the country.