UN: Bolivia became operations centre for international drug cartels
The Unodc representative in Bolivia warns that cartels such as the CJNG, PCC and Comando Vermelho operate in the country with the support of local organisations.
Bolivia, "hub" of transnational drug trafficking according to Unodc
Bolivia has become in recent years an operations centre for international drug cartels, according to a warning issued by Mónica Mendoza, representative in the country of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc), in an interview with the EFE news agency. According to correodelsur.com, the Government of Rodrigo Paz itself has acknowledged this situation, which Mendoza described as an opportunity to "improve" the fight against drug trafficking.
Mexican, Brazilian, Peruvian and Colombian cartels with active presence
Mendoza identified in Bolivia "a dimension of cartel expansion" that includes the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) from Mexico, the Brazilian organisations First Command of the Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV), as well as criminal groups from Peru and Colombia. The presence of these organisations is evident, according to the representative, in the number of citizens of those nationalities detained in Bolivian prisons "and who are linked to the command operations structure" of these groups.
To this is added a "significant" increase in cases of hired killings or executions, which indicates that these organisations "are in conflict" and "are fighting over territories". For months, contract murders have become recurrent in border areas with Brazil, a situation that forced the Bolivian Government to mobilise the Army and elite groups to reinforce security in these regions.
"Yes, there is a presence of cartels. We are not talking about Bolivian cartels, we are talking about organisations from other countries that operate with the acquiescence, with the consent of local organisations," Mendoza said.
A problem more complex than drug transit
For the Unodc representative, Bolivia can no longer be seen solely as a producer of raw materials or transit territory. The problem "is much more complex": there is a "confluence" of crimes such as smuggling, human trafficking, corruption and illegal mining, which function as a "holding" or business consortium of crime.
To this panorama is added the increase in coca leaf crops. According to the latest Unodc report presented in September, crops rose by 7 per cent, from 34,000 hectares in 2024 to 36,400 in 2025. Bolivia, where coca has traditional and ancestral use, is the world's third largest producer of the shrub, behind Colombia—with 261,000 hectares recorded in 2024—and Peru, which in 2025 reported 84,546 hectares.
Political shift after years of denial
During the governments of Evo Morales (2006-2019) and Luis Arce (2020-2025), the authorities denied the presence of cartels or major drug trafficking kingpins in Bolivia, maintaining that illicit operations were limited to alleged "emissaries" or local clans. The Paz administration broke with that stance: it acknowledged the existence of transnational organised crime in the country and defends the actions that led to the capture of figures such as Uruguayan Sebastián Marset, detained last March and extradited to the United States.
Mendoza indicated that drug trafficking in Bolivia does "not" operate "at a low level", something the Marset case clearly illustrates. The capture of the Uruguayan also meant, according to the representative, the end of the so-called "narcopaz": a tacit truce in which criminal organisations coexisted peacefully by having distributed routes, functions and territories, creating the impression among the population that the problem did not exist.
Institutional corruption and organised crime infiltration
Mendoza warned that in South America "there is a policy of expansion and infiltration of organised crime" that has "penetrated some institutions" of justice, forming "a network of corruption" to obstruct the prosecution of crime. She responded thus when asked about the dismissal and imprisonment of former attorney general Roger Mariaca, accused by the Bolivian Executive of having protected "narcoterrorism".
"Denying" that infiltration would be very "complex", Mendoza maintained, because it would allow drug trafficking to "take root" in institutions and be "very difficult" to recover them. In her view, "it is impossible" to combat drug trafficking on a large scale in a "unilateral or only bilateral" manner.
Legal reforms and international cooperation, key pending matters
The Unodc representative stressed the need to pursue crime and its finances, and to halt the operational capabilities of major organisations. She also emphasised that Bolivia should move forward in the approval of anti-money laundering standards and asset forfeiture laws, in addition to courts handing down sentences in drug trafficking cases, which to date have been "very few".
The Paz Government has already made a shift in anti-drug policy by again allowing collaboration with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), expelled from the country in 2008 by Evo Morales. Additionally, it signed an agreement with Washington and joined the Shield of the Americas for joint action against drug trafficking.
Source: Google News BO — Crime