Fact check: What are the most common sea routes used by Venezuelan drug smugglers?

Executive summary — Clear picture, limited confirmation: The supplied material indicates three broad maritime corridors linked to Venezuelan cocaine flows: northward through the Caribbean to transshipment hubs and European territories, eastward across the Atlantic along the so‑called “Tenth Parallel” toward West Africa (with Cape Verde as a key waypoint), and routes through the eastern Pacific that have drawn US military interdiction. Each claim is supported by at least one recent report, but the corpus contains no single definitive map of Venezuelan-origin sea lanes; the evidence is aggregated from regional studies and strike reports that point to patterns rather than a comprehensive route-by-route inventory ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}. The remainder of this analysis extracts the key claims, compares dates and perspectives, and flags where the public record is thin or politically charged.

1. Why analysts point to the Caribbean as a primary transshipment highway: Multiple pieces stress the Caribbean archipelago as a major conduit for cocaine moving from northern South America toward markets in North America and Europe, with specific islands and nearby mainland transshipment points repeatedly mentioned. Reports identify countries such as the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Suriname — and European territories in the region — as nodes that provide a direct link to Europe, reflecting a long‑standing pattern where small vessels, go‑fast boats, and concealed cargo transit through island chains to avoid detection ^[2]. This view is reinforced by the claim that roughly half of Europe‑bound cocaine transits through Venezuelan territory or waters before entering Caribbean routes, making the Venezuela-to-Caribbean corridor a recurrent focus for interdiction and regional cooperation ^[1].

2. The “Tenth Parallel”: an Atlantic corridor to West Africa and Europe: Investigative accounts and trafficking analyses describe the Tenth Parallel — or “Highway 10” — as a major cross‑Atlantic route linking northern South America to West Africa and onward to Europe, with Cape Verde singled out as a strategic stopover. The 2019 reporting situates Venezuela as a significant origin point for cocaine that ultimately reaches Europe via this eastward transatlantic corridor, implying organized maritime logistics capable of sustaining long passages and transshipment chains ^[1]. The pattern shows traffickers exploiting weak maritime patrols and permissive island jurisdictions; however, the supplied dossier does not include vessel‑tracking datasets or seizure geolocations that would permit finer-grained mapping of individual sea lanes.

3. Eastern Pacific activity and the US interdiction narrative: Separate reporting documents US strikes on alleged narcotics vessels in the eastern Pacific, suggesting that traffickers also exploit Pacific corridors for shipments destined for North America or transshipped northward along Central American routes. These strike reports from 2025 emphasize kinetic interdictions rather than peacetime surveillance outcomes, and they have generated regional controversy about legality and proportionality ^{[3] [4] [5]}. The operational focus on the eastern Pacific demonstrates that Venezuelan flows cannot be described solely by Atlantic/Caribbean dynamics; maritime smuggling networks often adapt and diversify, moving product along both ocean basins when enforcement pressure or weather patterns make one corridor less viable.

4. Gaps, caveats and competing explanations in the record: The assembled sources converge on broad corridors but reveal important evidence gaps: none of the items provide direct, contemporaneous vessel‑tracking evidence specifically tying Venezuelan ports to discrete sea routes; instead, they infer routes from seizure patterns, geopolitical links, and strike operations ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Reporting on US military strikes introduces a potent security framing that can shape conclusions toward interdiction‑friendly narratives, while Caribbean trade and migration reports focus on transshipment nodes without quantifying volumetric shares attributable to Venezuela versus neighboring states ^{[6] [5]}. Policy and advocacy agendas are visible: regional security actors prioritize interdiction stories, whereas development journals underscore the wider social and governance factors that enable maritime smuggling.

5. Practical takeaway: most likely maritime picture and what’s missing: Synthesizing the material produces a defensible, if non‑exhaustive, conclusion: Venezuelan drug flows most commonly exploit northward Caribbean routes to island transshipment hubs, an eastward transatlantic corridor along the Tenth Parallel toward Cape Verde and West Africa en route to Europe, and episodic eastern Pacific passages that draw US operational responses ^{[1] [2] [3]}. What remains missing are open‑source AIS/INTEL overlays, seizure geodata, and judiciary case files that would confirm vessel identities, ownership webs, and exact waypoints. Filling those gaps would shift the picture from high‑level corridor identification to route‑level mapping necessary for targeted enforcement and policy responses.