How did Venezuelan cocaine output change between 2019 and 2025 and what drove the shifts?
Executive summary
Between 2019 and 2025, available international monitoring and reporting show that Venezuela shifted from being predominantly a transit corridor to hosting growing domestic processing activity and nascent production capacity for cocaine, even as most global cocaine production increases remained rooted in Colombia and the Andean states (UNODC; WOLA; InsightCrime) [1] [2] [3]. Drivers of that shift include spillover from Colombia’s production surge, proliferation of illegal processing labs inside Venezuela, and alleged involvement or tolerance by elements of the Venezuelan state and military—claims that sit alongside competing analyses arguing Venezuela remains a secondary transit country for U.S.-bound cocaine [1] [4] [5] [3].
1. The quantitative picture: global cocaine rose while Venezuela’s role changed in character
Global cocaine production hit a new high in 2023, rising roughly a third year‑on‑year, driven primarily by expanded coca cultivation and yield updates in Colombia and neighboring Andean producers (UNODC World Drug Report 2025) [1]. UNODC mapping and seizure data for 2020–2023 show Venezuela as part of trafficking flows within the Americas but not the dominant origin of world supply, and official U.S. assessments in 2020 estimated roughly 200–250 metric tons trafficked annually through Venezuela—figures used as baselines through 2023–24 (UNODC; U.S. estimates reported by WOLA) [6] [2].
2. From transit corridor to processing and nascent production inside Venezuelan territory
Multiple investigative reports and UNODC detections document that between 2019 and 2023 authorities located and dismantled hundreds of illegal processing facilities in Venezuela—UNODC counted about 260 detected and dismantled processing sites from 2019–2023—evidence that the country moved beyond pure transit functions toward domestic conversion capacity (UNODC; local reporting synthesised by KCRA and MRT) [4] [7]. Field reporting and InSight Crime analysis describe coca cultivation and emerging lab networks concentrated in border states such as Zulia and Apure, suggesting a real expansion of on‑the‑ground production infrastructure in that period [3] [8].
3. Why this expansion happened: Colombia’s boom, porous borders, and precursors
The principal exogenous driver was Colombia’s production surge, which enlarged the flows available for diversion and created incentives for adjacent territory to host processing and export logistics; UNODC attributes much of the global production jump to expanded Colombian cultivation and yields [1]. Local reportage and NGO investigations point to porous borderlands, free movement of precursor chemicals through Zulia, and logistical experience gained by traffickers and complicit security actors as enablers of growing Venezuelan processing capacity [3] [8].
4. The political economy: accusations, indictments, and competing interpretations
U.S. indictments and media reporting have alleged that elements of Venezuela’s political and military leadership facilitated trafficking—claims which the U.S. Justice Department and AP have amplified, alleging large‑scale facilitation and leadership-level corruption [9]. Those allegations coexist with analysts and NGOs (WOLA, UNODC, some academic briefs) who caution that while corruption and criminal networks have deepened, empirical monitoring still treats Venezuela primarily as a transit corridor with only modest direct production relative to Andean producers; U.S. monitoring data showed declines in Venezuelan flows after a 2017 peak through mid‑2019, complicating a simple “narcostate” narrative [5] [2] [10].
5. Where this leaves cocaine output and risk through 2025
By 2025 the picture is mixed: global cocaine output reached record highs driven by Colombia (UNODC), while Venezuela increasingly hosted processing facilities and reported domestic eradications—signalling a meaningful change in the country’s role from mostly transit to one with growing internal processing and limited production capacity [1] [4] [3]. Quantitatively, authoritative public estimates continue to treat Venezuela as a secondary player for U.S.‑bound cocaine even as seizures, lab counts, and investigative reporting document an uptick in on‑territory activity that raises the risk of further domestic expansion absent effective controls [2] [4] [3].
6. Competing agendas and the cautionary note on evidence
Analyses and policy moves must be read through political lenses: U.S. indictments and some government rhetoric press a country‑level culpability narrative that can justify coercive measures, while NGOs and academic groups emphasize data limits and the primacy of Andean production to argue against over‑militarized responses [9] [5] [11]. UNODC mapping and lab‑dismantling counts provide the strongest public empirical evidence of increasing Venezuelan processing, but gaps remain in precise tonnage produced inside Venezuela versus trafficked through it, and public sources do not uniformly quantify a national total output figure for 2019–2025 [6] [4] [1].