How do Mexican cartel-controlled routes into the U.S. connect with Caribbean and South American transit hubs?
Executive summary
Mexican cartels act as the primary northbound integrators for cocaine and other drugs produced in South America, receiving maritime shipments from Colombia, Peru and Ecuador or coordinating Caribbean transits, then moving product overland through Central America and across the U.S.–Mexico border [1] [2] [3]. Those connections are multiplex: South American producers and Caribbean brokers supply maritime and island transits, Mexican groups consolidate, protect and transport loads through plazas, using land, coastal vessels and corruption to link distant transit hubs to U.S. distribution networks [4] [5] [6].
1. How the route network evolved from the Caribbean to Mexico
Smuggling patterns shifted from a Caribbean–Florida focus in the 1980s to a Mexico-centric corridor by the 1990s and 2000s after law-enforcement pressure in the Caribbean and the rise of Mexican intermediaries, meaning South American suppliers increasingly relied on Mexican criminal enterprises to reach U.S. markets [7] [6] [3]. Central American states then grew as storage and transshipment hubs—Guatemala and Honduras are repeatedly identified as key stepping stones between South America and Mexico—so the Caribbean never disappeared but became one of several complementary approaches rather than the primary artery [8] [9] [7].
2. Maritime handoffs: South America → Caribbean → Mexico
Large maritime consignments often originate on Colombia’s, Peru’s or Ecuador’s coasts and use three principal sea lines—the Pacific, Caribbean and Atlantic—where traffickers move cocaine by fishing vessels, go-fast boats or commercial containers to islands and coastal points that function as relay nodes before inland transport toward Mexico [1] [5] [4]. Caribbean island states and littoral areas provide porous points—airstrips, bays and beaches—where loads are split, stored or retransferred to Mexican partners or onward coastal runs that skirt detection [7] [10].
3. Mexican cartels as consolidators and overland logisticians
Once product reaches Mexico or Central America, powerful Mexican cartels—most notably Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation among others—take on wholesale distribution, using territorial control of border plazas, bribery and sophisticated logistics (tunnels, vehicles, guarded corridors) to move multi-ton shipments across the U.S. border, making Mexico the primary conduit for U.S.-bound cocaine [11] [3] [6]. Central American groups often retain roles as local facilitators and storage operators; Mexican groups provide security, routes and market distribution northward [8] [2].
4. The Transit Zone and geographic anatomy of connectivity
U.S. government analyses treat the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and eastern Pacific as a seven‑million square-mile Transit Zone where maritime flows from South America are intercepted, rerouted or handed off to land corridors through Central America and Mexico, illustrating how oceanic and terrestrial hubs are part of one integrated trafficking ecosystem [5] [1] [4]. Practically, go‑fast boats, fishing vessels and container concealment move loads to intermediary ports or islands that link into established overland routes through Guatemala, Honduras and southern Mexico up to border plazas like Tamaulipas and Sonora [5] [8] [12].
5. Methods, concealment and adaptation across hubs
Traffickers exploit a portfolio of methods: maritime smuggling (go‑fast boats, private vessels, container concealment), air drops and passenger couriers, and sophisticated land techniques—tunnels, commercial trucks and corrupted checkpoints—allowing shipments from South America and the Caribbean to be seamlessly integrated into Mexican-controlled land corridors into the U.S. [4] [11] [1]. As enforcement squeezes one node, traffickers shift to the next-lowest-cost route—hence periodic resurgences of Caribbean routes, increased Central American storage, or direct Pacific landings into Mexican ports [6] [7] [13].
6. Competing narratives, actors’ incentives and policy blind spots
Official narratives emphasizing a single “wave” from one sea corridor understate the multi‑actor, adaptive network: Colombian suppliers, Caribbean brokers, Central American facilitators and Mexican cartels all have different incentives—production, transshipment fees, territorial rent and retail profits—which drives cooperation and competitive violence as plazas change hands [8] [7] [6]. Law-enforcement pressure in one region reallocates flows elsewhere rather than eliminating supply, and counterdrug efforts often reflect political priorities that shape where interdiction resources concentrate [5] [13].
7. Bottom line: an interconnected, adaptive supply chain
The U.S. drug supply chain is integrated across oceans and land: South American production feeds Caribbean and Pacific maritime hubs that transfer loads to Central America and Mexico, where cartels consolidate control and run the overland logistics into the United States; disrupting one hub historically reroutes flows rather than collapsing the network [1] [2] [6]. Reporting demonstrates continuity and adaptation across multiple jurisdictions and actors, and available sources document patterns and tactics but do not allow precise quantification of current tonnages moving through any single hub without more recent seizure data [4] [5].