Research paper
Maritime transportation of illegal drugs from South America

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.07.010Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

The US invests considerable effort in searching and interdicting drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific regions. While some vessels are indeed interdicted, resulting in confiscation of substantial quantities of drugs, many such vessels manage to avoid detection and arrive safely at their destinations in Central America and Mexico with their drug load intact. The agency in charge of interdicting this traffic, Joint Interagency Task Force South—JIATF-S, sends out both aerial and surface assets for search and interdiction missions.

Methods

An important parameter for planning search and interdiction missions is an estimate of the expected steady-state number of the various types of drug trafficking vessels present in the search regions at any given time. In this paper we use various publicly available sources to estimate these numbers.

Results

We estimate that the number of drug shipments initiated per month ranges between four and six dozen, and at any given time there are between two and four vessels, of all types, on the high seas. These estimates remain quite robust over a relatively large range of assumptions and estimates regarding the size and distribution of the drug flow, mix of vessel types, and physical characteristics of those vessels.

Conclusion

Our analysis provides insight for how to allocate assets to search, detect, and interdict drug trafficking vessels. The results can also be useful to vet informants to check if their information is consistent with our flow estimates. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time such flow estimates appear in the open literature.

Introduction

One of primary missions of the US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) is to disrupt the flow of drugs from Central and South America to the United States via the southern approaches. This mission is executed by the Joint Interagency Task Force South—JIATF-S. JIATF-S is a US-government interagency that collaborates with law-enforcement agencies from other countries in Central America. Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) employ both maritime and air conveyances and use a variety of vessel types to transport the drugs. Examples of maritime means of transportation include go-fast boats, pangas, fishing vessels, and self-propelled semi-submersibles (SPSS). JIATF-S’s area of operations (AO) covers over 42 million square miles (ONDCP, 2014, Stavridis, 2010), yet it has quite a limited fleet of search and interdiction assets to effectively support its mission.

Notwithstanding lead-times in the drug supply chain, a reasonable and simple estimate for the non-intercepted flow of cocaine from South America to the US in a given time period is the estimated total consumption of cocaine during that time in the US. If the total consumption is X, and there are no other significant sources of cocaine shipped to the US, then the total flow of cocaine to the US in that period is X too. Estimates of drug consumption are given in Caulkins, Kilmer, Reuter, and Midgette 2015, Kilmer et al. (2014), ONDCP, 2010, ONDCP, 2012, ONDCP, 2013, ONDCP, 2014, Rhodes et al. (2012) and UNODC (2011). However, we must be cautious using this estimate. First, the purity of cocaine decreases as it moves through the supply chain down to the consumers. Thus, X tonnes of cocaine in the streets of US cities may be generated from only Y tonnes of shipped cocaine of higher purity, where Y < X. Second, nearly all the cocaine exported from South America to the rest of the world flows through the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific regions, and thus we cannot merely focus on US consumption estimates. The main question we address in this work relates to the interdiction efforts of JIATF-S: how many cocaine-carrying vessels of a certain type are afloat in the area of interest at any given time? This number is affected by the number and capacity of the various vessels, production capacities and processing schedules of cocaine at the sources in South America, logistic constraints regarding ground transportation, weather, and possibly seasonality in demand for cocaine. The number of vessels and their spatial distribution in the area are also affected by the actions of the interdicting force—JIATF-S. The latter consideration lends itself to a game-theoretic situation. This paper aims at estimating the DTO traffic intensity at sea by focusing on the maritime transportation section of the DTO supply chain. Here we take an aggregate approach by considering both production and consumption data to constitute the base for estimating total DTO traffic in the maritime Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. In particular, we ignore possible responses of DTOs to interdiction efforts by JIATF-S. To simplify exposition we henceforth call JIATF-S the interdictor.

Section snippets

DTO traffic estimates

As mentioned in the Introduction, we plan to answer the following question: how many drug-carrying DTO vessels of a certain type are afloat in the AO at any given time? The challenge is to estimate an unobservable parameter (undetected vessels) based on limited available data regarding production, consumption, and interdiction. From the point of view of the interdictor, each DTO vessel is in one of three possible states: interdicted, known but not interdicted, and unknown. A vessel in the state

Sensitivity analysis

In this section we perform sensitivity analysis to provide a range of plausible values for the number of smuggling vessels as we vary the parameter estimates. Some sensitivity analysis is very straightforward. For example, any change in our baseline of 850 metric tonnes flowing out of South America will produce a proportional change in Table 5, Table 6. In particular, the first decade of the 21st century saw a sharp decrease in the consumption and flow of cocaine (Kilmer et al., 2014, ONDCP,

Policy implications

The results from our analysis should provide insight for how to allocate assets to search, detect, and interdict DTO vessels. For example Pietz and Royset (2013) formulate a tactical asset allocation model that assigns air assets (e.g. P-3s or P-8s aircraft) to daily missions to search for DTOs based on current intelligence and positions interdiction assets (e.g. Navy frigates) to best-respond if the searchers make a positive detection. For a given number of vessels on the water and the

Conclusions

There are several approaches to deal with the flow of cocaine into the US. Arguably the most effective way is to reduce the demand for the drug. The other main option is to disrupt the cocaine supply chain by directing counter-drug efforts at various links of this chain. One type of action is targeting the production stage − destroying Coca fields and production plants. Another option is to add more friction to the financial network to make it more difficult for money to flow from consumers

Conflict of interests statement

To the best of our knowledge, there is no conflict of interests in publishing this research. The research was funded by the Office of Naval Research, which supports publishing its funded research.

References (26)

  • L. Alvarez

    In Puerto Rico, cocaine gains access to U.S

    (2014)
  • J.P. Caulkins et al.

    Cocaine’s fall and marijuana’s rise: Questions and insights based on new estimates of consumption and expenditures in us drug markets

    Addiction

    (2015)
  • CBS-Miami

    Coast Guard intercepts $58 million in cocaine off Florida coast

    (2011)
  • CBS-Miami

    Coast Guard captures more than a ton of cocaine

    (2012)
  • Coast Guard News

    Coast Guard Cutter Midgett returning to Seattle after seizing nearly six tons of cocaine

    (2015)
  • B. Fiegel

    The picuda: a wave-breaking go-fast wonder that defies radar detection

    (2014)
  • W. Gibson

    Shifting drug smuggling routes bring contraband to Florida

    (2014)
  • M. Hodgson

    Super-speedboats piloting Colombia's cocaine trade

    (2002)
  • J. Kandel

    Traffickers using submarines to transport drugs

    (2012)
  • B. Kennedy

    More than $110 million worth of cocaine offloaded by Coast Guard

    (2014)
  • B. Kilmer et al.

    What America's users spend on illegal drugs: 2000-2010

    (2014)
  • A. Milburn

    The evolution of maritime drug trafficking technology

    Maritime security challenges conference blog

    (2012)
  • J. Pietz et al.

    Generalized orienteering problem with resource dependent rewards

    Naval Research Logistics

    (2013)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text