Coca plants grow just two months a year amid the lush greenery of the Colombian countryside. But the cocaine those plants produce powers a multibillion dollar industry that has spread around the world.
Despite the reputation for decadence and sophistication that has been built up around cocaine, the production process is simple.
Local farmers, sometimes families aided by neighbors, pick leaves by hand and then put them through a complex and noxious process to eventually turn those leaves turned into coca paste.
That paste can then be sold to traffickers, either Colombia's left-wing rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) or one of the many gangs that have proliferated in the 20 years since the fearsome and powerful Medellin cartel of Pablo Escobar disintegrated in the wake of Escobar's ignominious death in 1993.
Despite intense and often violent efforts by Colombia (with strong backing by the US) to reduce coca cultivation, the trade has seen a resurgence in recent years.
The photos below, taken by the Associated Press' Rodrigo Abd, document the coca-paste-production process, revealing the humble beginningsof one of the world's most lucrative illegal drugs.
Antioquia, in red, links central Colombia to trafficking routes in Central America and the Caribbean. Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel was based out of the city of the same name, where he was killed in 1993.
Escobar's Medellin cartel fell apart after his death in 1993, and rival cartels soon suffered the same fate. Criminal networks, paramilitaries, and rebel groups (like the FARC) soon picked up the cocaine trade.
The first cocaine laboratory found inside the Medellin's urban area was uncovered earlier this month, where Colombian authorities found nearly 9 pounds of pure cocaine power that could have been converted into 26 pounds of the drug for distribution, likely in local markets, officials said.
"To have this laboratory in a residential sector carries risks for the population from the chemical ingredients and the dangers inherent to this illicit activity," said Gen. Jorge Horacio Romero Pinzón, commander of the Colombian army's fourth brigade, according to El Tiempo.
In this January 7, 2016, photo, a coca field owned by Edgar and his father Gonzalo stands ready for harvest in the mountain region of Antioquia, Colombia. The family produces coca paste that is used to make cocaine at a humble home in territory controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
As a part of Colombia's deal with the FARC to end more than 50 years of hostilities, the rebel group, which reportedly controls 70% of the coca crops in the country, and the government have agreed to implement a joint crop-substitution program.
A crop-substitution pilot program began this month in Briceño, in northwest Antioquia. Officials are optimistic about the pilot program's prospects, especially because the region is home to other viable crops. That may not be the case in other regions, however.
The whole family of Gonzalo, the farmer who spoke with the AP, lives off the production of coca paste and the idea of eradication of their crop is a call to arms for the whole region.
The family can get about $900 for a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of the base paste, which is the first link in a long economic chain of intermediaries. The paste is eventually turned into cocaine, and soon it's being sold on the streets of such places as New York and Amsterdam for many thousands of dollars.
As cocaine advances along the trafficking chain, value is added.
A kilo of cocaine that reaches the US border can be worth $12,000 to $15,000, and that same kilo, once it is broken up for retail distribution in the US, can eventually sell for six-figure amounts.
When a kilo of cocaine "retails it's worth more like $150,000 per kilo," Tom Wainwright, author of "Narconomics" and The Economist's former Mexico City reporter, told Business Insider earlier this year. Wainwright added:
"And the reason for that is because the guys who do that stage in the chain are the ones who face the highest risk. They're the ones who take this shipment of perhaps a ton of cocaine, break it down into smaller portions of just a kilo or a few hundred grams, and ship it out to hundreds of contacts throughout the country."
Though coca cultivation dropped off in the late 2000s, it has seen a resurgence in recent years, with cultivation in 2014 climbing 44% over the amount recorded in 2013.
Source: Business Insider
In 2015, cultivation surged 36%, to more than 235,000 acres (about 370 square miles), the most seen in the country since 2007 and enough to put it at the top of the list of the world's coca-producing countries.
Of Colombia's 32 departments, or states, 81% of coca cultivation was concentrated in five: Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo, and Caquetá, all of which in are in southern Colombia, and in Norte de Santander, which borders Venezuela in northeast Colombia.
All those areas are affected by armed conflict (Putumayo especially) and frequently appear on the UN Office on Drug and Crime's list of drug-production areas.
Source: UNODC
The resurgence of production has been driven by a number of factors, including hiccups in the legal economy and the appearance of reduced risk for producers.
The end to eradication by aerial fumigation, which was shut down in October because of concerns about health risks, has been shown to have played less of a role in the cultivation increase than suggested.
Additional factors behind the cultivation increase are the higher prices offered for coca leaf as well as encouragement from FARC rebels, who have told farmers they will be eligible for subsidies to switch to legal crops once a peace deal is signed.
Economic factors coupled with a struggling legal economy — and a dearth of alternatives thus far presented by the government — have contributed to Colombia's increased coca production, which now outstrips that of the second- and third-biggest producers combined.
The Colombian government hasn't "replaced eradication with anything,” Adam Isacson, of the Washington Office on Latin America, told Bloomberg. “They have made no move to go into these coca-growing areas and provide people with other alternatives. They took away the stick and didn’t do any carrot, and the result is a lot more coca.”
For farmers like those the AP talked to, coca production is less of a moneymaking scheme that a financial imperative.
Edgar and his family, who live in Antioquia in northwest Colombia, run a small coca-paste production operation, a small cog the the Colombian cottage industry that produces cocaine.
For farmers in remote regions of Colombia, by the time they produce and ship legal crops like fruit to market, their costs have exceeded their profits.
“But with coca,” Jeremy McDermott, codirector of Insight Crime, told The Atlantic, “the buyer will come to your house.”
"The government does not want to resolve the huge problem we have here," said Orlando Castilla, president of the Farmers Association in the Guaviare region of south-central Colombia. "We appear to be rich, millionaires on a national and international level, but we have nothing to live off," he added.
Source: Reuters
Some Colombian farmers, rather than dealing directly with traffickers, trade the coca paste they produce to local stores in exchange for much-needed goods.
Coca helps give local residents "a way of sustaining their families in every sense," in a way that the government hasn't matched, Ferin Oviedo, a representative of the Guayabero Regional Farmers' Association, told Reuters.
Source: Reuters
In this January 7, 2016, photo, a vat holds liquid called "nata," which means buttermilk, at a lab in the mountain region of Antioquia, Colombia. The mixture of coca-leaf juice, gasoline, ether, and other chemicals will eventually be converted into coca paste.
The base materials for cocaine are considerably cheaper than the finished product would suggest.
"If you look at the raw ingredients in a country like Colombia, to make a kilo of pure cocaine, you need about a ton of fresh coca leaf. It then gets dried out. It weighs a bit less, but that ton of leaf to start with costs only about $400 or $500 in Colombia," Wainwright told Business Insider. That coca leaf is then turned into coca paste, often in makeshift labs in isolated rural areas.
Source: Business Insider
While there are doubts about the commitment of some elements of the FARC to ending their involvement in the cocaine trade, the prospect of the rebel group exiting the trade has created the potential for increased violence, as recalcitrant rebels and criminal groups compete for larger shares of the market.
Though the FARC has a centralized command structure, the possibility remains that some rebels could ignore any peace deal and continue their involvement in the cocaine trade, a scenario that would mirror what happened after right-wing paramilitaries disarmed in the mid-2000s.
Also waiting to fill the void left by a demobilized FARC are Colombia's criminal groups (called BACRIM, based on their Spanish initials). One of the most powerful of them is Los Urabeños.
Los Urabeños, which reportedly partnered with "El Chapo" Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel in the past, have expanded to Colombia's southwest, bringing it in conflict with both the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN), another left-wing rebel group.
Source: Business Insider
As negotiations with the FARC have progressed, the Colombian government has turned its focus to groups like Los Urabeños. The group has sustained losses, including the dismantling of a trafficking network shipping cocaine to Europe. But, Insight Crime notes, the group's top leadership has avoided capture.
Moreover, recent seizures indicate how big a task dismantling groups like Los Urabeños will be: In May, Colombia seized nearly 9 tons of cocaine hidden near the border with Panama, believed to belong to Los Urabeños.
The haul, with a reported value of $240 million, was called the biggest seizure in Colombian history, but only three people were arrested in the operation.
Source: Insight Crime, Reuters
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