Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean has adopted new strategies and strengthened control over territories and illicit economies.
Drug trafficking supply chains have shifted, criminal syndicates have capitalized on the lack of economic opportunities to recruit new members, and insecurity combined with economic crises has sparked a massive wave of migration that criminal groups have exploited to their advantage.
InSight Crime analyzes several ways the pandemic has impacted organized crime since it began five years ago.
1. Reshaped Drug Trafficking Routes and Supply Chains
In March 2020, the United States, Canada, and Mexico closed their borders to all non-essential travel, claiming it was a necessary measure to curb the spread of COVID-19.
For criminal groups involved in drug and arms trafficking, the border closures further disrupted the global supply chains that sustain the drug trade.
In Mexico, synthetic drug producers had long relied on chemicals imported from Asia to manufacture drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine. But as these imports slowed, Mexican producers had to adapt.
Instead of relying on key precursor chemicals like P2P and methylamine, they began synthesizing these compounds from more readily available and loosely regulated chemicals sourced domestically.
This shift not only shielded fentanyl producers from the tightening global controls on chemical imports but also made their operations more resilient to disruptions in international supply chains.
In Colombia, the pandemic’s border closures and reduced maritime traffic presented drug trafficking organizations with the opposite problem: too much product.
Delays and rising costs in the maritime shipping industry created a bottleneck in Colombia, leaving traffickers with stockpiles of drugs ready to be shipped. With more cocaine than they could move, criminal groups splintered, and competition intensified.
As the world emerged from the pandemic and demand picked up, drug traffickers seeking to reach Europe or the United States had their pick of Colombian criminal groups to work with, often favoring those with the strongest logistics networks, territorial control, and access to trafficking routes.
This struggle for dominance sparked violent clashes along key corridors, deepening fractures within Colombia’s underworld. The ripple effects of this power struggle are still visible today in conflict zones.
2. Accelerated Ecuador’s Security Crisis
Few countries in Latin America felt the long-term security consequences of the pandemic as acutely as Ecuador.
As nationwide lockdowns took effect, Ecuador’s economy ground to a halt. Mobility restrictions shuttered businesses, and unemployment skyrocketed, according to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime.
Criminal organizations wasted no time, and stepped into the vacuum left by the state, recruiting minors and unemployed youth with the offer of reliable income as social programs were slashed and government assistance dwindled.
The surge in the murder of young people paints a grim picture of Ecuador today — since 2020, the murder of individuals 19 and younger has risen by more than 200%.
When security forces shifted their focus to enforcing lockdowns and social distancing measures, anti-narcotics operations, such as drug seizures, preventive raids, and intelligence gathering, plummeted. Organized crime seized this opportunity as police priorities changed.
At the same time, already overcrowded and unstable prisons were deprioritized, with resources redirected elsewhere. Criminal groups took to strengthening their grip behind bars and using the penitentiary system as a breeding ground for recruitment, coordination, and power consolidation.
The consequences of this neglect are still playing out today, as Ecuador’s prisons remain epicenters of violence and criminal control.
SEE ALSO: How Forced Migration Fueled the Rise of Organized Crime Networks in Venezuela
3. Solidified Criminal Control Over Migrant Smuggling
Emigration from some of Latin America’s most insecure and economically distressed countries surged during the pandemic.
Initially, this human mobilization was hindered by lockdowns and land border closures, particularly between Venezuela and Colombia. As official channels tightened, migrants were forced into the hands of smugglers, particularly Tren de Aragua.
The group began offering multi-leg, multi-country smuggling packages. Even as borders reopened, many migrants continued to rely on smugglers like Tren de Aragua, viewing migration officials and security forces in Venezuela as corrupt and untrustworthy.
SEE ALSO: Colombia Crime Profile: Exploring Criminal Networks, Security Forces, and the Justice System
In Colombia, the number of people crossing the Darién Gap, the jungle that connects Colombia and Panama, exploded after the pandemic.
The Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), the dominant criminal group in northern Colombia, dramatically expanded their role in the migrant smuggling business as the volume of migrants surged.
In 2021, around 130,000 individuals made the journey. By 2024, that figure had skyrocketed to over half a million.
The unprecedented flow of migrants through the Darién Gap became a significant issue, not only for local criminal groups but also for international politics.
By 2024, migration had become one of the most pressing issues in the US presidential campaign, as thousands of migrants, many heading for the United States, traversed this dangerous jungle corridor, largely facilitated by organized crime.
While migration through the Darién has significantly tapered off in 2025, the AGC used this crisis to strengthen its grip on the Urabá region in northern Colombia, home to the Darién Gap.
In North America, the pandemic’s impact on border policies and migrant smuggling remains evident today. When COVID-19 hit, the United States implemented Title 42, a public health measure that effectively suspended asylum procedures and gave officials the authority to expel migrants back to Mexico or their home countries.
But Title 42 often drove migrants into the hands of organized crime groups offering smuggling services, who saw the influx of vulnerable people as an opportunity for extortion, kidnapping, and sexual assault.
And as many migrant shelters were forced to close or limit their capacity, people became more exposed to the dangers of the criminal underworld.
Mexican criminal organizations, including the Northeast Cartel, an offshoot of the Zetas, intensified their control over migrant routes. In border cities like Nuevo Laredo, the group escalated kidnappings and demanded ransoms that could reach thousands of dollars for release.
The exploitation of these migrants, who were told to remain in Mexico due to pandemic-era border closures, significantly boosted the profits of Mexico’s criminal groups, and their reliance on migrant smuggling as a key part of their criminal portfolio.
