CentAm Gangs Selling Drug Trafficking Services on Dark Web: UN Official / Parker Asmann

A UN official stated that Central American gangs are strengthening their ties with transnational drug trafficking groups, in some cases using the dark web, raising questions about the potentially evolving role of Central American gangs in the transnational drug trade.

Amado Philip de Andrés, the representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Central America and the Caribbean, warned that Central American gangs are playing an increasingly active role in trafficking cocaine and laundering money, in part through the use of the dark web, EFE reported.
Through postings on the dark web, an encrypted and anonymous part of the internet, Central American gangs offer their services and are contracted to transport illicit shipments for drug trafficking groups, according to de Andrés.
For payment, the gangs allegedly receive a fixed rate instead of a percentage of the value of the drugs being transported. Payments are reportedly made in Bitcoin, a decentralised digital currency that offers users anonymity.
De Andrés linked the development of ties between transnational groups and Central America’s gangs to Colombia’s booming production of cocaine.
«When you have between 200 and 350 additional tons of cocaine of great purity, of more than 70 percent, a greater confluence exists between maras, gangs and the drug traffickers’ intermediaries,» he said. SEE MORE…