The uncontrolled onslaught of drug trafficking in Chile

The violent territorial dispute between drug traffickers in towns has drug wholesalers at the top of the pyramid: sophisticated criminal organizations that, supported by international arms trafficking and the corruption of officials, expand a business out of control. CIPER interviewed police officers, prosecutors and analyzed files. Weapons of war, satellite phones, laboratories and money laundering via transportation and construction companies, everything is useful to the drug trafficker. Part of the drug that arrives in Chile supplies mafias in Australia, Holland, Jordan and other countries. But much of it stays here: consumption grows at the same time that drug dealers establish their power.

In just four years, the Jiménez Meza came to control 65% of the cocaine market in the Valparaíso Region. Its leader, Manuel Jiménez –the “Care' Chala”–, escaped in 2004 from the Ligua prison (Fifth Region) and settled in Bolivia. At least since 2014, and in the hands of local producers and burreros, this criminal organization managed shipments to Chile of hundreds of kilos of hydrochloride and base paste through unauthorized border crossings in the north. From there, and for years, the drug circulated at high speed to Valparaíso, hidden in decommissioned ambulances and car bombs.

For each of the three shipments that the police managed to seize from them, the Jiménez Mezas successfully smuggled at least two or three shipments of cocaine into Chile. Today they face justice for the third time. They are accused of drug trafficking, illicit association and laundering of hundreds of millions with front companies. Some of the loot was invested in property, vehicles, and racehorses; another was sent by land to Bolivia so that Manuel – who is still a fugitive – could continue developing the business. This is how the circuit worked.

The internment by land and sea of ​​cocaine – also of creepy marijuana and synthetic drugs – is out of control. CIPER calculations –based on statistics from the Ministry of the Interior– indicate that between 2016 and 2017 more than 3.6 tons of hydrochloride and cocaine base paste have been seized at four of the main border crossings that connect the Region of Tarapacá with Peru. and Bolivia: Quillagua, Loa, Chacalluta and Colchane. But the "red zones" of internment also extend to several points of the more than 160 unauthorized border crossings identified in the north, where police and Customs have no control. The same crossings used for years –and without much difficulty– by the Jiménez Meza and several other drug dealers.

No authority today can calculate how much drug enters Chile for each kilo intercepted. Nor, how many tons remain and how many go abroad. It is true: hundreds of kilos are re-exported from Chilean ports abroad, taking advantage of the "good reputation" of the country, to "clean the route" of shipments. CIPER's investigation indicates that with this formula, criminal organizations in Australia, Canada, Spain, Holland, Jordan and a Roman mafia clan are supplied.

The evidence collected for this research also confirms a reality: more than a place of passage, Chile is today an emerging destination market. In fact, the United Nations World Drug Report places us for some years as one of the largest consumers of cocaine on the continent.

CIPER examined the judicial files of nine of the largest seizures of cocaine hydrochloride and base paste between 2016 and so far in 2018. Of these, only three went abroad. The other six to collection and distribution points in the central zone of the country. A mountain of more than 3.9 tons of cocaine whose final destination was retail distributors in towns in the southern, central and northern areas of the Metropolitan Region and Valparaíso. The bulk of them, located in places without social fabric and in which the State has retreated before the accelerated and violent domination of drug traffickers.

Informal calculations estimate that 1.5 million people in different parts of the country are at the mercy of criminal gangs that control the drug business. The installation in Chile of these drug trafficking organizations has brought with it an increase in violent deaths. Data obtained by CIPER show that in the last six years there have been 620 homicides with firearms, with an increase of 65% between 2012 and 2018.

Between 2001 and 2018, the State has disbursed more than $199 billion in a dozen intervention programs. Diagnostic errors, lack of continuity, corruption and bureaucracy have caused these plans to crash one by one to the ground.

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The micro-trafficking points of sale grow year after year and consumption levels continue to rise. In parallel, base paste continues to intensify in adolescents and young people from lower income sectors.

CIPER examined recent court cases involving complex drug internment and distribution operations; reviewed official data obtained from open sources and by the Transparency Law, and interviewed police officers, prosecutors, and government authorities. The conclusion: organized crime advances without counterweight, with its power increased by the black market for high-caliber weapons. From rifles, laser sights and silencers, to grenades.

Arsenals that come from armories and the international traffic of arms and ammunition, going through the deposits of the Armed Forces themselves.

-Organized crime advances faster than our capacities as a country to persecute it. Due to lack of coordination we are allowing Chile to be a platform for the entry of drugs. I say it responsibly: we are behind schedule – warns the director of the Drug Unit of the Public Ministry, prosecutor Luis Toledo.

Not only the lack of coordination between police, prosecutors and authorities opens flanks for the penetration and expansion of organized crime. Deactivating its increasingly sophisticated operation requires time and resources that police and prosecutors are not always willing to risk, since the weight of the evidence does not ensure a good result in court.

Accusations against drug traffickers for illicit association are not common in justice and several of those that are presented remain unconvicted. Official data obtained by CIPER indicate that between 2012 and 2017 only 18 rulings have been issued for illicit association linked to drug trafficking throughout Chile. There were 13 convictions and five acquittals.

The permeability of borders is also replicated in the public institutions that fight drug trafficking. A Customs agent who instructed drug traffickers in secure communication techniques learned in a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) training; detectives infiltrated in criminal organizations who end up enrolled in them; carabineros participating in drug or "Mexican" removals between rival gangs; gendarmes facilitating trafficking operations from prison and a non-commissioned officer who stole military weapons from the Army for a gang that distributes cocaine in Lo Espejo, are part of the cluster of public officials co-opted by drug traffickers in recent years.

Foci of corruption that are just glimpses of a greater reality and of unknown magnitude.

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