Despite the military operation that the United States has deployed in the Caribbean since September 2025 to combat drug trafficking, the flow of cocaine continues from Colombia and Venezuela, bound for the North American power and also for Europe. The bombings against suspicious vessels killed a hundred people.
Still, it became clear that the movement of a massive fleet, which included around 15,000 soldiers and the largest aircraft carrier in the world, had as its objective the capture and extraction of Nicolas Maduro from Caracas.
The purpose for which President Donald Trump justified such an operation was to interrupt drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea. But with Maduro behind bars in the United States, that space seems to have returned to what it used to be before September: The scenario of an intricate and very active network of routes through which tons of narcotics move that in turn feed the global narcotics trade.
“The geography of the Caribbean — which has hundreds of islands and territories scattered across a vast maritime space — offers traffickers a wide variety of routes and methods of transport. Attacking a single corridor will probably not stop the flow of drugs,” warns in a report the prestigious think tank and media outlet InSight Crime, and adds that the focus of the United States on the Caribbean “may have overlooked a broader picture, since a large proportion of the cocaine that moves through the region now heads to Europe instead of the United States.”
Flow of cocaine continues from Colombia and Venezuela, an old route known to traffickers
Immediately afterward, it explains how criminals have adapted in the Caribbean Sea according to circumstances. “The Caribbean route emerged in the early 1980s, when South American traffickers began to use the islands of the region as refueling points for flights that carried cocaine to the United States.”
But the pressure from authorities later pushed much of this traffic toward Central America. “The Caribbean never disappeared from the map of drug trafficking, but rather its role has been fluctuating since smugglers tend to reactivate routes when pressure increases elsewhere,” adds InSight Crime. “In the last decade, the growing demand for cocaine in Europe has driven a renewed boom in trafficking through the region.”
It then focuses on the cocaine supply chain, which begins in South American production zones, mainly in Colombia. “Part of this product is shipped directly from Colombia to Central America and Mexico, from where it continues northward toward the United States. But a large part moves through Venezuela, taking advantage of its long and porous border with Colombia and its extensive coastline,” it states.
“Once inside Venezuela, some shipments are transported eastward, to Guyana and Suriname, or southward, to Brazil,” illustrates the same outlet. And it highlights that most of the loads move toward coastal departure points through river, land, or air transport. “From these transshipment hubs, the cargoes begin their next leg toward the Caribbean islands,” it specifies.
Routes get lost among the islands
The next point referred to by InSight Crime is the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao (ABC), located just off the coast of the Venezuelan state of Falcon. That location makes them a key stop for cocaine shipments leaving that region. “From these islands, traffickers carry smaller loads northward through the Caribbean in small vessels — such as speedboats and fishing boats — or send them directly to Europe aboard container ships and private yachts.”
Trinidad and Tobago is also just a few miles from the Venezuelan coast, and that makes it a key point for the transit of cocaine from Venezuela. “Traffickers use small vessels to move drugs to the islands from the states of Sucre and Delta Amacuro.
Once there, local networks move the loads to storage facilities,” explains the same outlet. “From those points, shipments move northward, either toward the United States, making stops among other Caribbean islands, or directly to Europe aboard cargo ships and private yachts.”
Traffickers also tend to move cocaine along the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, where they unload shipments from small boats or vessels, according to InSight Crime, and explains that “with little police presence, and the proximity to South America makes it an ideal area for these operations.”
Criminal groups also exploit the porous border with neighboring Haiti to bring cocaine into the Dominican Republic by roads and trails. “Once inside the country, the drug is transported inland, to major ports such as Santo Domingo and Caucedo, where it can be hidden in cargo containers before crossing the Atlantic toward Europe or heading to North America.”
The operations of the United States in the Caribbean since September 2025 have interrupted maritime channels between Venezuela and the ABC Islands, as well as routes toward Trinidad and Tobago.
That caused some traffickers to pause their operations or abandon heavily patrolled areas. “But the campaign only disrupted some of the trafficking corridors in the Caribbean, leaving others open. There are also indications that criminal networks diverted routes eastward, toward Guyana, Suriname, and Brazil, to avoid U.S. forces,” concludes the report.