A Strategic Overview of Latin America: Identifying 

New Convergence Centers, Forgotten Territories, and 

Vital Hubs for Transnational Organized Crime

by Douglas Farah and Kathryn Babineau

STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES 28

Center for Strategic Research

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University
Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National 

Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes 

the Center for Strategic Research, Center for the Study of Chinese 

Military Affairs, and Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass 

Destruction. The military and civilian analysts and staff who comprise 

INSS and its subcomponents execute their mission by conducting 

research and analysis, publishing, and participating in conferences, 

policy support, and outreach.

The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the 

Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the 

unified combatant commands in support of the academic programs at 

NDU and to perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and 

the broader national security community. 

Cover: “Pallaqueras” (female gold scavengers) search waste rock

from gold mine in La Rinconada, Peru, September 29, 2009

(© Photo by Albert González Farran—www.albertgonzalez.net)
A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Institute for National Strategic Studies

Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

Series Editor: Thomas F. Lynch III

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

January 2019

By Douglas Farah and Kathryn Babineau

A Strategic Overview of Latin America:

Identifying New Convergence Centers,

Forgotten Territories, and Vital Hubs for 

Transnational Organized Crime
For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, please visit inss.ndu.edu/Publications.aspx.

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those 

of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any 

other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a 

standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints 

or reviews.

First printing, January 2019
Contents

Executive Summary ........................................................................................... 1

Introduction........................................................................................................ 3

Growth of the Illegal Gold Trade and Transnational

Organized Crime................................................................................................ 5

Understanding Gold Mining and Laundering Operations:

The Case of Peru................................................................................................. 7

Paraguay: The New Regional Convergence Center ....................................... 9

Bolivia: Key Supporter of Bolivarian Alliance and Convergence

Center ................................................................................................................17

Nicaragua and the ALBA Structure ...............................................................21

Connecting the Dots........................................................................................27

The FARC Dissidents.......................................................................................34

Conclusions.......................................................................................................36

Notes ..................................................................................................................39

About the Authors............................................................................................46
The United States must do more to dismantle transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and 

their subsidiary networks. Some have established global supply lines that are comparable to 

Fortune 500 corporations. . . . TCOs are motivated by profit, power, and political influence. 

They exploit weak governance and enable other national security threats, including terrorist 

organizations. In addition, some state adversaries use TCOs as instruments of national power, 

offering them territorial sanctuary where they are free to conduct unattributable cyber intrusions, sabotage, theft and political subversion.

—National Security Strategy of the United States of America

December 2017
Map courtesy of Nations Online Project

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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Executive Summary

This paper outlines a number of critical strategic challenges in Latin America for U.S. 

policymakers, which were directly identified in the December 2017 National Security Strategy.1

However, despite this recognition, these issues are seldom featured in policy discussions about 

the region.

Through the framework of the convergence paradigm, which contends that multiple criminal/terrorist groups work collaboratively when such cooperation is mutually convenient, we 

consider a number of territories, key commodities, and new money-laundering methodologies 

that have allowed transnational organized crime (TOC) networks to flourish in seemingly marginal regions of the hemisphere. Long considered to be a critical challenge in Latin America, 

regional TOC groups, often under the direct protection of state actors, are able to adapt and 

thrive when policymakers do not understand the evolution of their operations, recognize the 

roles criminalized states often play, or develop innovative tools to combat TOC adaptations.2

Through examination of these evolving challenges, this analysis seeks to raise awareness among 

policymakers and to demonstrate how relatively few strategically targeted, well-placed resources can curb the financial and territorial reach of TOC groups. Furthermore, the analysis shows 

that continuing neglect of these challenges can enable the growth of criminalized, anti-U.S. 

regional powers, and hamper the ability of key U.S. allies to promote the rule of law and democratic growth throughout the region.

This analysis begins with a study of convergence in the illicit gold trade, drawing on fieldwork in Puerto Maldonado, Peru. It then considers three countries—Paraguay, Bolivia, and 

Nicaragua—that receive little attention from policymakers but are key players in the emerging drug trafficking, gold trade, money-laundering, and extra-regional illicit networks in Latin 

America. The discussion of both Bolivia and Paraguay features a brief study of the activities of 

the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Command of the Capital), based in Brazil but rapidly 

expanding its operations across South and Central America. Despite being one of the largest 

and fastest-growing criminal gangs in the hemisphere, it is seldom viewed as an important 

consideration for regional trends. Finally, an overview of the Ramiro Network, a massive regional state-sponsored money-laundering structure based on fictitious oil sales, highlights a 

key convergence point for TOC activity in El Salvador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Colombia—

including the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of 

Colombia or, FARC), FARC “dissidents,” and Russia.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

Many trend lines in Latin America are worrisome, and the actors discussed here are directly tied to the more visible crisis in Venezuela and the growing threat in Colombia. Ties between the FARC secretariat in Colombia—recently demobilized after a historic December 2016 

peace agreement—and FARC dissident structures that remain engaged in cocaine trafficking 

and other illicit activities are now clearly documented and demand serious responses in order to 

ensure the continued security of Colombia, a close U.S. regional ally.3

 Leaving the actors in these 

new regions of convergence to grow unchecked presents a serious security risk to the United 

States and the region.
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Introduction

New centers of convergence in Latin America, often on the periphery of the main geographic and thematic policy discussions, represent an ongoing and growing challenge to the 

security of the United States and the survival of democratic governments in the region. This 

study seeks to address some of those gaps in current knowledge, and identifies groups, areas, 

and issues of interest, as well as connections among dangerous actors that have not been seriously considered.

The case studies presented here on Paraguay, Bolivia, and Nicaragua play different roles in 

regional transnational organized crime (TOC) structures. Nevertheless, each plays a vital part in 

the weakening of the rule of law and democratic governance in the hemisphere. This weakness, 

in turn, gives openings to highly sophisticated criminal groups like the Primeiro Comando da 

Capital (First Command of the Capital or, PCC), which are now capable of exercising territorial 

control while taking over parts of the cocaine trade and multiple other criminal enterprises. 

Every action by the PCC and similar groups highlights the ineffectiveness of nation-states and 

delegitimizes the governments in the eyes of the governed.4

In nations like Bolivia and Nicaragua, where the government actively seeks partnerships 

with criminal and terrorist groups as state policy aimed at harming the United States, this dynamic also opens spaces for extra-regional actors including Russia and Iran. The growing Russian presence, including that of Russian organized crime, further weakens U.S. policy goals in 

the region and creates an environment hostile to U.S. values and strategic interests.

The importance of Bolivia and Nicaragua within the Bolivarian Alliance, a regional bloc 

founded by Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chávez, is increasing as the regime of President 

Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela implodes and allies elsewhere in the region suffer crippling electoral defeats.5

 Both nations, acting as part of a criminal enterprise directed from the highest 

levels of their governments, are playing larger roles in both cocaine trafficking and the laundering of large sums of money through the illicit gold trade, state-sanctioned front companies, and 

phantom investments. Illicit gold movements are a central part of money-laundering operations 

by multiple illicit actors. Paraguay, though not a member of the Bolivarian Alliance, exercises 

virtually no control over its borders, allowing de facto free-fly zones that traffickers use to move 

Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine to Brazil and Argentina, then onward to more lucrative markets. 

Given its central role in the region’s contraband operations due to lax control over money movements and its borders, Paraguay has also become a new regional center for laundering illicit 

proceeds from multiple countries, including Central America. It is also the home of the Ejército 
4 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

del Pueblo Paraguayo (Paraguayan People’s Army or, EPP), a small but dangerous rural insurgency with close historic—and possibly current—ties to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias 

de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or, FARC) in Colombia. According to 

Paraguayan and U.S. officials in Paraguay and the region, the radical Shia activities in the TriBorder Area (TBA), benefiting Hizballah directly, continue unabated.

Traditionally viewed as an internal Brazilian problem, the PCC is now central to the new 

dynamics of drug trafficking and TOC in the region. The Brazilian gang has rapidly expanded 

by taking over drug trafficking routes traditionally controlled by the FARC and has pushed 

deeply into the cocaine trafficking centers in Bolivia and key transit routes in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. While primarily working in cocaine production and retail, the gang is also 

investing in illegal mining and weapons trafficking in an attempt to diversify and increase its 

overall revenue stream. The PCC, which is actively recruiting FARC combatants, has carried out 

a series of spectacular bank robberies in Bolivia and Paraguay in recent months, netting tens of 

millions of dollars as it seeks to become the dominant cocaine cartel in the hemisphere.

Given the press of global conflicts in which the United States is involved, it is not surprising that simmering and ill-defined threats, even those close to the Homeland, are not considered a priority. However, the growing number of convergence points in Latin America for TOC, 

extra-regional state actors, and terrorist groups, where they can engage in mutually beneficial 

efforts to counter U.S. interests and possibly harm the United States, should be a significant 

concern.6

 Rather than looking at individual threats in isolation (Venezuela, the MS-13 gang in 

Central America, the Sinaloa Cartel), the connectivity among these groups must be studied. 

The criminalization of the Bolivarian Alliance means that Venezuela cannot be understood in 

isolation but as part of a multistate joint criminal enterprise. The MS-13 in Central America’s 

Northern Triangle can only be understood as part of a broader convergence of criminal and 

political interests in Central America. The dynamics of the Sinaloa Cartel are directly tied to the 

FARC demobilization process in Colombia.

These overlapping networks and points of convergence are not isolated and singular entities and events, but part of a mosaic of actors and interests that pose a significant threat to the 

United States. These networks must be understood more fully in order to take countervailing 

measures to mitigate the threats they pose.

This report draws primarily on original field research conducted by IBI Consultants 

throughout 2016 and 2017, including field visits; interviews in the field with academics, journalists, and experts; and a review of open-source reporting in both English and Spanish. The 

research was carried out in support of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

for Counternarcotics and Global Threats through the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for 

National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University in order to improve understanding of the changing nature of the emerging threats and new modalities of drug trafficking in the 

Western Hemisphere.

Growth of the Illegal Gold Trade and Transnational Organized Crime

Traditionally, U.S. policy in Latin America has focused almost exclusively on cocaine and 

drug trafficking in its efforts to combat TOC. A new commodity, however, has proved to be a 

critical export for TOC in recent years. Illegally mined gold, extracted all over Latin America 

with devastating environmental effects, is now a top commodity for regional TOC groups as 

both a source of income and a vehicle for money-laundering.7

Some observers in recent years have claimed that the informal mining sector throughout much of South America is characterized by small-scale, disorganized, individual miners 

operating in the Amazon region. However, IBI Consultants field research and open-source 

reporting indicate that the scale of the mining industry in the Madre de Dios region shared 

by Bolivia and Peru is quickly growing beyond these humble roots. Research further indicates 

that by 2010 or 2011, the proceeds from illegally mined gold had already exceeded those from 

narcotics trafficking.8

Gold trafficking is also a major concern because of its great potential as a money-laundering vehicle for TOC groups, including extra-regional actors such as Russian organized crime 

groups operating throughout South and Central America. As a recent U.S. criminal complaint, 

filed against NTR Metals in Florida, stated:

Criminals frequently trade illegal gold through illicit shell or front companies using 

false or incomplete documents, often smuggled through third-party countries, and 

then sold to refineries in the U.S., in an effort to hide the true source, ownership, 

and origin of gold from foreign and U.S. law enforcement. . . . In general, gold 

is a good medium for money laundering because it has universal and readily 

ascertainable value and is difficult to trace . . . millions of dollars [were] paid in 

the U.S. to Peruvian narco-traffickers [for cocaine sales]. The narco-traffickers 

then physically smuggle the cash payments back to Peru where it is used to 

purchase illegally mined gold, and the gold is then sold [effectively laundering 

the narco money].

9
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

Like other illicit economies, illegal gold mining fits into a broader network of illicit goods 

and trafficking networks, all of which help to strengthen TOC groups and fray the social fabric 

of affected communities. These economies that “complement” illegal gold are critical to understand in order to have an accurate picture of the overall scale of criminalization. Furthermore, 

these conditions create the perfect environment for nonstate armed actors and TOC groups to 

take deep root, particularly given the lack of government presence or willingness to curtail the 

biggest players.

There is a direct link between illegal gold operations and human trafficking, as TOC 

groups create demand for both laborers and prostitution in the remote areas where illegal mining is conducted.10 There is little understanding of TOC roles in these “supply” chains, but it is 

clear that laborers and sex workers are often lured to illegal mining areas with promises of employment, but then trapped into staying and working for no wages under a system of debt peonage.11 For example, an environmental ministry official in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, indicated 

that these mining groups in the Madre de Dios region control every facet of the industry within 

their respective spheres of influence. The same entities are employing miners and transporting/

selling gold, running prostitution and sex trafficking rings, and opening bars in mining outposts 

where miners can spend their wages. Others confirmed this assertion, adding that these individuals also control fuel stations and deploy protection gangs for security.

In Colombia, illegal wildcat mining operations have direct impacts on national security, 

as both FARC dissident leaders and other criminal groups vie for control of the highly lucrative commodity. A 2016 report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized 

Crime notes that approximately 80 percent of all gold mined in the country is produced illegally through a large network of unlicensed miners.12 Not coincidentally, illegal mining is 

concentrated in areas with a significant criminal presence, including parts of Antioquia, Bolívar, 

Cauca, Chocó, Córdoba, and Nariño. In illegal mining areas controlled by criminal groups, in 

particular FARC dissidents, criminal groups reap financial earnings via direct control of mines, 

imposing a vacuna (tax) on wildcat mining operations, or running operations that launder and 

move illegal gold to market. Revenues from these operations are remarkably lucrative; the same 

Global Initiative report referenced above estimated that monthly vacuna revenues for the FARC 

total approximately $1.2 million.13 Other armed criminal groups, including the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army or, ELN) and Bandas Criminales (which includes 

Los Rastrojos and Los Urabeños) appear to be running similar operations. In fact, these groups 

are finding illegal mining so profitable—the business generates $2.4 billion a year for criminal 

groups in Colombia alone—that they are clashing over key mining territories.14 In Venezuela, 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

battles between the military and criminal groups, both of which are reportedly vying for control 

of key mining regions, have led to major spikes in violence, including a March 2018 massacre by 

the Venezuelan military that left 18 miners dead.15

Like much of South America, Ecuador has also emerged as a key illegal gold producer, 

producing an estimated 15 to 20 tons of illegal gold each year, employing up to 10,000 miners 

and attracting significant participation from FARC dissidents, among others.16 The uptick in 

criminal activity in the sector has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in violence in 

illegal mining areas.17

When considering the strategic challenges in Latin America that do not receive the attention they deserve, it is essential to include the study of the illicit gold trade. The trade is a 

growing and critical linchpin of the regional economy of TOC. As outlined below, the case of 

Puerto Maldonado presents one example of how gold can serve as both a highly profitable commodity and a driver of new money-laundering modalities for criminal economies throughout 

the region.

Understanding Gold Mining and Laundering Operations:

The Case of Peru

Peru’s Puerto Maldonado—the capital city of the Madre de Dios region and a town deep in 

the Amazon—has from its founding functioned largely outside the control of the national government. Now a major center for illegal gold mining and trafficking, the Madre de Dios region 

has emerged from obscurity as a central node in Latin America’s illicit gold trade.

According to sources in Peru, the gold industry in Madre de Dios appeared to take off 

after 2010, when the number of registered gold trading companies in Peru skyrocketed. Gold 

interdictions by the Superintendencia Nacional de Administración Tributaria (National Superintendency for Tax Administration or, SUNAT) also jumped significantly, from approximately 

$1.5 million in gold seized in 2009 to over $1 billion in 2012.18 Judicial documents pertaining 

to these multimillion-dollar operations reveal that these corporations—which were purchasing illegal gold—negotiated the purchase of Amazonian gold with the so-called lords of illegal 

mining, as well as others who have been co-opted by organized crime, such as the owners of 

phantom export companies and landowners who pretended to be businessmen. Also involved 

were money traffickers; currency exchange houses; controversial Russian and Chinese investors; Peruvian, Bolivian, and Brazilian contraband-runners; business leaders from tax havens 

in the Caribbean; and even some people under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement 

Administration.19
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This investigation, which found that U.S. and Swiss refineries were complicit in these illegal operations, has been followed by a recent criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Department 

of Justice against NTR Metals (based in Miami), which is accused of financing and purchasing 

billions in illegal gold.20

On September 5, 2017, Samer Barrage and Juan Granda pleaded guilty in U.S. Federal 

court to importing illegally mined gold as part of a money-laundering conspiracy on behalf of 

NTR Metals. Along with one other defendant in the case, Barrage and Granda were sentenced 

in January 2018 to prison time in the United States.21 One recent report succinctly outlined the 

premise of the case, which demonstrates the overall danger that illegal gold trafficking poses to 

efforts to combat transnational organized crime:

Prosecutors assert the three defendants bought billions of dollars’ worth of gold 

from illegal mines in the Amazon rain forest, arranged to refine the precious 

metal, sold the gold and then wired the proceeds back to drug traffickers and other 

criminals in South America. . . . Narco-traffickers and other criminals financed 

the clandestine operation to convert their cocaine profits into cash.22

As the gold moves from the point of extraction up the supply chain to international buyers, the major gold purchasers in Puerto Maldonado utilize a number of strategies to lend the 

appearance of legitimacy to their illegal purchases. For instance, smaller acopiadores/comercialzadores (“middle men” or “traders”) purchase smaller quantities of gold from storefronts in 

Puerto Maldonado. It is unclear how these small operations are linked to larger markets, and 

sources were unable to clearly map this value chain. SUNAT officials, however, confirmed that 

these businesses are often front companies for much larger multinational criminal enterprises 

that will ultimately export the gold.

While gold traders are required to verify the legal documents of individuals wishing to sell 

gold, virtually all interviewees stated that these requirements are habitually ignored; many gold 

shops purchase either with the full knowledge that the gold was extracted illegally or without 

verifying any documentation. Money exchange businesses are a common front company; IBI 

Consultants observed a number of money exchange businesses in Puerto Maldonado, all of 

which were located very far from the tourist centers in the city that might use such services.

One of the greatest challenges of identifying and mitigating illegal mining is the difficulty of understanding commodity chains, and the transactions that move illegal gold from the 

point of extraction to international market sales. In the case of the illegal mines in and around 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Puerto Maldonado, gold is moved by several key types of actors and a number of different 

transportation methods including Callao Airport (located just outside of Lima, Peru), a major 

regional hub with significant flight traffic; highway travel from Puerto Maldonado via the Carretera Central (the new transcontinental highway) to Cusco and Juliaca; transport by mochilero

(“backpackers”), a mode traditionally used for cocaine from the Valle de los Ríos Apurímac, 

Ene y Mantaro, to Bolivia; and shipment from the Pacific port of Callao, a major transit point 

for multiple illicit goods from Peru to international markets.

Another complication in the effort to dismantle illegal gold mining networks is the difficulty of identifying the individuals and networks involved in mining. In the case of Peru, 

IBI Consultants field research indicates that there are a handful of powerful families or organizations that operate large illegal mining areas in Madre de Dios; they also appear to have 

developed methods to transport gold out of the area. According to Peruvian authorities, these 

criminal syndicates exercise control over a particular sector or geographic area of the gold trade.

In addition to the mining activities outlined above, IBI Consultants found a growing role 

of nonstate armed groups at various stages of the mining industry. As one official in Peru noted, 

most of the areas where illegal mining occurs have virtually no state presence. As a result, “mafias” have moved into these areas, operating as enforcers and assassins in illegal mining territory 

or running extortion schemes along transportation routes.

These mafias are often run by top drug bosses from the main coca-growing region of 

Peru, who have come to take over transportation routes for gold out of La Pampa (one of the 

key mining areas) by organizing security. In 2017, sources indicate that over 15 armed groups 

operate in the area, in charge of dispensing “justice” to those who break the “rules” regarding 

extortion, extraction, and payment. Many of the groups often have military or police experience. According to one source, assassins and other violent groups also operate along narcotrafficking routes to Bolivia and Brazil, which miners use to transport gold by negotiating with 

drug trafficking groups.

While much is still not understood about the illicit gold trade throughout Latin America, it is clearly a growing and exceptionally profitable commodity for TOC groups operating 

throughout the region. The trade, therefore, merits further serious study to develop measures 

that can effectively counteract its spread.

Paraguay: The New Regional Convergence Center

In recent months, Paraguay’s growing role as a new convergence center for TOC groups, 

nonstate armed actors, and terrorist groups has become more visible. The small landlocked 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

nation is one of the most isolated in the hemisphere. Long known as a smuggling hub for cigarettes, vehicles, and electronics, and its widespread corruption, Paraguay is not generally considered a key node in the region’s TOC structures.

Yet its geographic location—between a major cocaine producer (Bolivia) and two of the 

top per capita consuming nations in the world (Brazil and Argentina)—coupled with the lack of 

border controls, a sparse population, and the absence of financial regulations—make it an ideal 

center of operations for multiple groups.

The State Department’s 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report named Paraguay a “major money-laundering country” and noted that:

Drug traffickers exploit the landlocked country’s porous borders, clandestine 

airstrips, extensive internal waterways, and under-resourced, often corrupt, 

law enforcement and judicial institutions. International criminal organizations 

operating along the Paraguay-Brazil border also continue to engage in arms 

trafficking, money laundering, counterfeiting, and other illegal activities linked 

to narcotics trafficking.23

None of those circumstances enumerated by the State Department are new, but they have 

grown in importance as the regional drug trafficking panorama shifts southward and the Colombian FARC guerrillas cede formal control of cocaine routes and laboratories to others in the 

aftermath of the 2016 peace agreement with the government. A clear indicator of the growing 

importance of Paraguay as a transit center is the case of six Sinaloa Cartel members being arrested in Paraguay in December 2016 while attempting to establish a foothold in the country. 

Reports state the group was operating an industrial sugar cane mill as a storage and shipping 

point for Colombian cocaine destined for Europe.

Paraguayan authorities also seized 308 kilograms of cocaine on December 7, 2016, in Villa 

Elisa.24 The leader of the operation, Jimmy Waine Galliel, is considered to be a close confidant of 

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.25 The group reportedly entered the country under specific orders 

from Guzmán because the Sinaloa Cartel is considering new trafficking routes.26 In subsequent 

months, authorities uncovered additional cocaine smuggling operations undertaken by the 

Sinaloa Cartel in Paraguay.27

Germany has also noted an important increase in cocaine shipments originating in Paraguay, including a seizure of 1.6 tons in Hamburg in March 2017. German officials noted that 

the size of the cocaine loads coming from the Southern Cone had increased dramatically in 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

the past 18 months, from loads of about 100 kilograms to loads averaging between 300 and 

600 kilograms.28

In addition to the Sinaloa Cartel, there have been several important cocaine busts in 

the former Soviet republics that moved in vacuum-packed charcoal shipments originating in 

Paraguay, moving down the Paraguay and Paraná rivers and through Argentina to the Atlantic, 

then onward.

This movement of cocaine to Eurasia comes at a time when the Russian embassy is greatly 

expanding its presence in Asunción and exports of agricultural products and meat to Russia are 

skyrocketing. According to export data, Russia is the destination of 9.1 percent of Paraguay’s 

exports, behind the leader, Brazil, with 31.7 percent and ahead of third-place Chile, with 7.1 

percent.29 Given the cost of shipping from Paraguay to Russia, as well as the lack of export controls, it is not surprising that cocaine shipments are increasing as well.

In addition to an uptick in cocaine trafficking activities, and despite the fact that Paraguay 

is not a member of the Bolivarian Alliance, it appears that the country has become an emerging 

center for the Alliance’s money-laundering activities.

For example, in February 2017, Veja magazine published a report regarding a huge sum of 

Venezuelan bolívars that were seized in Paraguay. It was thought that the bills would be traded 

in Bolivia—one of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivarian 

Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or, ALBA) block countries that respects Venezuela’s 

fictional exchange rate for its currency—for dollars. This exchange would represent an overvaluation of the original currency by approximately 400 times and would also allow the bolívars 

to sit in Bolivia, a friendly nation and relatively safe location, as the Venezuelan government 

careens toward collapse.30

Well-known money-launderers from Central America are investing heavily in shopping 

malls and hotels in Asunción that are largely empty, as well as making other investments that 

have little market rationality in one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. This coincides 

with reports that major money-launderers for the Ramiro Network and other members of the 

Bolivarian Alliance have created significant structures in which to conduct their business.

The Attractiveness of Paraguay

As the incidents above indicate, Paraguay is an increasingly attractive base of operations 

for groups like the Sinaloa Cartel and Eurasian TOC. IBI Consultants research indicates that 

this attractiveness lies in a number of key characteristics, including:
12 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

■ The TBA, where Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil meet. The TBA has for generations 

been a key hub in the region’s informal economy, laundering billions of dollars a year 

through the proceeds of endemic and institutionalized contraband traffic. Reportedly the 

“largest illicit economy in the Western Hemisphere,” the TBA, in which Paraguay plays an 

integral part, provides an ideal setting for multiple criminal and terrorist actors to meet 

in safety.31

■ An almost complete lack of border controls, including no operational radars on the 

Bolivian or Argentine borders. This absence creates a de facto free transit zone rife with 

unmonitored airstrips, some which can accommodate large jets. These airstrips are in 

daily use by drug traffickers moving cocaine from Bolivia’s Santa Cruz region and Peru to 

the Brazil market. Subsequently, cocaine moves by waterways through Argentina, then on 

to Europe and elsewhere. Paraguayan officials confirmed press reports that officials from 

the civil air authorities in the country are complicit in these trafficking deals, which use 

major airports to land and fly cocaine planes. In particular, the Augusto Roberto Fuster 

Airport, located in Pedro Juan Caballero, is a key trafficking stop. From here, cocaine 

moves through Paraguay, then onward to Brazil, where it is destined for both domestic 

consumption and the European market.

■ A virtually unregulated, largely privatized riverine transit system that is one of the largest in the world. While riverine traffic is vital to the Paraguayan economy, the growth of 

vessels on the waterway has been huge and unmonitored, as are the private unregulated 

ports that operate along the banks.32 From 2005 to 2015, the number of river tugboats 

grew from 15 to 150, and the number of barges jumped from 100 to 3,000, giving Paraguay the third largest riverine fleet in the world, after the United States and China.33 The 

most recent public records show 67 registered ports in the country, although there has 

been a sizable uptick in new private ports since then. Of those 67, 44 are private, 15 are 

government operated, and the final 8 are listed as “extra port tax deposits,” with no information about their ownership or operation.34

■ Endemic corruption that reaches the senior levels of the Paraguayan executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government and impedes national or international efforts 

to coordinate drug enforcement actions or antimoney-laundering strategies. Both Paraguayan and U.S. officials characterized the police as being completely corrupt and unreli-
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

able, with the Secretaría Nacional Antidrogas (National Anti-Drug Secretariat) being only 

somewhat better.35

■ A complete lack of interest in combating even the most visible signs of growing moneylaundering through the formal economy. This trend was evident during field investigations, where one can observe the construction of several new luxury shopping centers that 

carry high-end goods far beyond the reach of all but a tiny minority of Paraguayans; the 

construction of six new luxury hotels in Asunción, although there is no indication that 

tourism is climbing significantly and site visits showed most of them were almost empty; 

and the construction of luxury office towers that are unaffordable and empty. These investments are classic indicators of money-laundering. According to sources on the ground, 

antimoney-laundering efforts are hampered by a lack of coordination between agencies, 

as well as the fact that the Financial Intelligence Unit has no access to tax information.36

■ The EPP, a small but sporadically active insurgency, that has historically been close to 

the FARC in Colombia and trained by the FARC between 2008 and 2010.37 The group has 

become active again in recent months, indicating that it may still be receiving support 

from the FARC or have resources from criminal activity. The group, estimated to number between 30 and 60 armed combatants with several hundred civilian sympathizers, 

recently released two Mennonite hostages for an estimated $1.25 million in ransoms, and 

killed a third whose family was unable to pay the sum demanded.38 Paraguayan intelligence and judicial officials believe the EPP has business dealings with the PCC near the 

Brazilian border to protect and move cocaine from near the Bolivian border through the 

Pedro Juan Caballero corridor.

Convergence Factors

As a direct consequence of these favorable circumstances, Paraguay now hosts a widening 

array of TOC and terrorist groups, who utilize the lax regulatory environment and diverse illicit 

economy to their economic and operational advantage.

Since the 1994 Iranian-sponsored bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina 

(Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) Jewish center in Buenos Aires, the TBA has been under scrutiny as a hub for radical Shia financial activities. The scrutiny was due to the role that 

Hizballah operatives in the region played in moving explosives and personnel for what remains 

the largest radical Shia terrorist act in the hemisphere.
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A 2003 study by the Library of Congress’s Federal Research Division, following the 9/11 

attacks, cast a much broader net on terrorist activities in the region. The report stated that 

there was

substantial evidence for concluding that various Islamic terrorist groups have 

used the TBA . . . as a haven for fund-raising, recruiting, plotting terrorist attacks 

elsewhere in the TBA countries or the Americas in general, and other such 

activities. Islamic terrorist groups with a presence in the TBA reportedly include 

Egypt’s Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) and Al-Jihad (Islamic Jihad), al 

Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah, and al-Muqawamah (the Resistance; also spelled alMoqawama), which is a pro-Iran wing of the Lebanon-based Hizballah. Islamic 

terrorist groups have used the TBA for fund-raising, drug trafficking, money 

laundering, plotting, and other activities in support of their organizations.39

Some government officials and academics who study the TBA share this assessment, but 

the threat level posed by these groups is a subject of significant debate within Paraguay among 

those who monitor the groups, both foreign and national. The general consensus is that Hizballah remains by far the most active of the terrorist groups in the TBA and that Hamas remains 

active among Sunni groups but that the other groups are no longer visibly active.

The leader of the radical Shia movement in the TBA is reportedly Mohamad Jaafar Khalil, 

who lives in Foz do Iguaçu, on the Brazilian side of the TBA. According to recent Paraguayan 

intelligence, Khalil is the “chief of operations” of Iranian cleric Mohsen Rabbani (responsible 

for the 1994 AMIA attack in Buenos Aires), with the mission of “building mosques and creating 

Hizballah cells in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero (Paraguay) and Ponta Porã (Brazil), known 

as international drug trafficking centers.”40

U.S. law enforcement and Paraguayan authorities agree that Hizballah continues to raise 

significant revenues and launder the proceeds through the huge and unregulated TBA borders 

and that multiple businesses in Ciudad del Este, Pedro Juan Caballero, and Foz do Iguaçu all 

send millions of dollars back to Hizballah in Lebanon and elsewhere.

Regional law enforcement officials and Paraguayan experts stated Hizballah’s ties to the 

cocaine trade had increased over the past 18 months in part, they hypothesized, due to the need 

for increased cash flows as Hizballah greatly expands its military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

It is impossible to quantify how much money flows to Hizballah from the TBA; nevertheless, 

there is a general belief, based on observed banking transactions, that the transactions reach 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

multiple tens of millions of dollars a year—and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars. Given 

the proliferation of currency exchange houses in the TBA where all three national currencies 

(Brazilian, Argentinian, and Paraguayan) operate, and the lack of any regulation of those operations by any of the governments, the movement of funds back to Lebanon or elsewhere is easy 

to disguise and almost impossible to detect on an ongoing basis.

The activities of Hamas and other radical Sunni groups are even harder to quantify. Since 

the reports of al Qaeda leaders and other Sunni groups in the area in the early 2000s, there is 

little visible footprint of any group except Hamas. Their primary activities in the region reportedly center on financial transactions that appear to be money-laundering, with money flowing 

to banks around the world.

Role of the PCC

Experts state that having established virtually unchallenged power in many areas of Brazil, 

the PCC has turned its attention to an area that regional law enforcement refers to as the “Wild 

West”: the border areas between Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru.41

Lincoln Gakiya, a Brazilian prosecutor and PCC expert, recently noted in the Wall Street 

Journal that the “PCC is trying to wrest control of smuggling routes in Brazil from other criminal groups, cut out intermediaries, and work directly with Colombian suppliers to deliver cocaine to Brazil.”42 In addition to maintaining a strong presence in Pedro Juan Caballero, the PCC 

is also active in Ciudad del Este and Bella Vista Norte regions of Paraguay.43 In trying to assess 

the impact of the group’s operations, the Paraguayan government estimates that the PCC moves 

5 metric tons of cocaine monthly through Paraguay on approximately 20 flights, earning $3.5 

million. The flights from Bolivia and Peru use clandestine landing strips as well as the airport 

in Pedro Juan Caballero.44

In recent years, rather than staying in the border regions, as had long been their custom, 

PCC members are carrying out murders and attacks in closer and closer proximity to the Paraguayan capital and other major cities long considered safe. This is due in part, according to officials in Paraguay and the region, to the PCC seeing an unprecedented opportunity to convert 

itself into the region’s premier drug trafficking structure.

As one prosecutor in São Paolo recently noted, the “goal is to take the whole country [all 

routes into Brazil] and much of the Southern Cone.”45 In service of this goal, the PCC assassinated Jorge Rafaat Toumani, a drug trafficker and powerbroker, in the border town of Pedro 

Juan Caballero in June 2016.46 With Toumani eliminated, some analysts are concerned that the 
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PCC will be able to control virtually all marijuana, cocaine, and weapons trafficking between 

Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay.47

A combination of factors makes the PCC power play possible, according to one researcher 

who has studied the PCC for many years. These include:

■ The PCC’s formidable financial resources that have been husbanded for several years 

with the goal of regional domination in mind.

■ The formal demobilization of the FARC in Colombia and its retreat from control of 

some of the major drug trafficking routes in the region, leaving a once-in-a-generation 

opportunity to remake the region’s cocaine structures.

■ The PCC’s pipeline of high-end weapons, which they have purchased from the FARC 

as they demobilized. The guerrillas often turned in their older weapons and sold or kept 

the best.

■ Access to major Atlantic routes that do not go to the United States but through the 

much more loosely controlled waters of West Africa or directly to Europe. The volume of 

unregulated containers that flow through private ports and outward to the Atlantic side of 

Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina makes moving cocaine a low-risk, high-value proposition.

Over the past 2 years, the PCC has distinguished itself through its daring bank robberies 

in Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia. The heists have been carried out using heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and executed with military precision. The heists have netted the 

organization tens of millions of dollars.

In April 2017, the PCC carried out what the local media dubbed the “robbery of the century” in Ciudad del Este, robbing a reported $40 million from an armored vehicle company. 

The PCC reportedly deployed 50 armed men with assault rifles and hand grenades to carry out 

a series of diversionary attacks while the company was robbed. Burning armored trucks were 

used to block the roadway as the assailants escaped with the cash in an armored vehicle and 

disappeared across the river into Brazil.48

This type of robbery, one of several in the region, has allowed the PCC to quickly amass 

cash that both bolsters its military capabilities and allows it to buy and intimidate its way into 

the upper echelons of the regions’ drug trafficking organizations.
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Bolivia: Key Supporter of Bolivarian Alliance and Convergence Center 

Paraguay has not turned into a TOC convergence center in a vacuum, and its extensive, 

porous border with Bolivia is one of the primary reasons that multiple illicit economies thrive 

in the region. Bolivia is a place where the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities 

have the least visibility in Latin America. It is routinely described as a “black hole” by U.S. officials since the 2008 expulsion of the DEA and downgrading of diplomatic ties (neither country 

has been represented by an ambassador for the past decade). According to field research by IBI 

Consultants, this opacity has allowed the government of President Evo Morales to expand his 

influence within the Bolivarian Alliance, particularly as Venezuela faces massive economic and 

political challenges. Within this context, senior officials in the Morales government are increasingly active in the cocaine trade that moves through Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. This government structure has gained control of much of the illicit gold trade as well.

This analysis is not an overview of the internal situation of Bolivia, but rather a look at 

ties within its territory to regional TOC groups. It also examines a trend of unusual economic 

activity, often mirroring the money-laundering structures of other members of the Bolivarian 

Alliance whose governments are highly criminalized and whose leaders use TOC groups as 

instruments of state policy. As discussed below, the PCC has also established a significant footprint in Bolivia—as in Paraguay—by entering the cocaine market, conducting high profile and 

high value robberies, and taking over cocaine production laboratories.

The New Locus of the Gold Trade

IBI Consultants research shows that, like the Albanisa and ALBA Petróleos structures 

used by the Bolivarian states in Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Morales government has engaged in a string of irrational and sometimes fictitious investments that are a key hallmark of 

money-laundering activities. Perhaps the biggest anomaly is the sudden quadrupling of gold 

exports from 2013 (about $300 million) to 2014 ($1.37 billion). Peruvian law enforcement 

authorities believe a significant part of this increase in Bolivian exports is due to better enforcement on the Peruvian side of the joint border regions, stating Peruvian traffickers move 

gold into Bolivia then re-export it as gold of Bolivian origin. As explained by SUNAT officials, 

Peruvian gold exports have dropped since more stringent gold export controls took effect, a 

drop that is largely explained by decreases in production from the informal/illegal gold trade—

during the years that gold exports decreased, large and medium-scale mining exports have 

remained stagnant.
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

Multiple sources reported that Bolivia plays a critical role in the illicit economy of illegal 

gold, including the Central Bank of Bolivia, which is reportedly being used as a bank for drug 

traffickers and is also purchasing illegal gold. Two sources interviewed by IBI Consultants have 

suggested a link between the Bolivian government and illegal mining groups. SUNAT officials 

in Peru further confirmed that exports from Bolivia by two high-risk companies, Kaloti Precious Metals and NTR Metals, have increased dramatically since enforcement tightened in Peru.

In a twist of irony, gold that is trafficked from Peru to Bolivia and then exported from 

Bolivia to the international market often heads to the international market by way of the international airport in Lima. Multiple sources confirmed that customs officials at Jorge Chavez 

Airport are required to respect the sovereignty of products that pass through it. This means that 

products (including gold) coming from Bolivia cannot be searched, as they have been labeled 

for export by Bolivia and are merely passing through Lima’s airport.

Kaloti: Growing Business and Growing Suspicions

In addition to its operations in Suriname, which IBI has already investigated in detail,49

Kaloti is linked to 2013 investigation of illegal mining financing, along with other companies 

based in the United States and Switzerland.50 Officials in Lima confirmed Kaloti, with its main 

office in the United Arab Emirates and an affiliate in Miami, to be one of the key companies 

under scrutiny by Peruvian investigative authorities since 2014.

The company was involved in a major illegal gold investigation by the Peruvian customs 

authority, which suspected the company of moving gold from Peru to its refineries in Florida. 

Evidence from multiple sources suggests that Kaloti was aware of what was happening with illegal mining; a report from OjoPúblico further states that Kaloti was directly financing the illegal 

mining operations.51 Despite these ongoing investigations, however, sources based in Puerto 

Maldonado indicate that Kaloti continues to purchase gold in the area.

Kaloti is also active in Bolivia. Recent open-source investigations indicate that Kaloti in 

Bolivia exported $99 million in gold in 2014, or approximately 7.39 percent of all gold exports 

leaving Bolivia.52 Although Kaloti ultimately received the gold, it was exported by eight different 

local companies, some of which have ties to other firms known to export illegal gold.53

Of the individuals known to be working with Kaloti in Bolivia, the Saavedra family is arguably the largest portion of their business; records suggest that a group of siblings and nephews 

work in the gold export business. Furthermore, investigative reporting showed that Ronald Saavedra Orosco is considered one of the top exporters from Bolivia to the United States, sending 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

14 tons of gold between 2011 and 2015.54 Other entities dealing with Kaloti in Bolivia have also 

been the subject of international gold trafficking investigations.

Most of the gold was, at least on paper, sent to new markets where Bolivia had no history 

of exporting gold, including the United Arab Emirates, Italy, and India. As discussed below, the 

exports to UAE and the Kaloti Group are particularly worrisome, given the extensive suspected 

criminal activity the U.S. Government has found in that refining sector.55

This 350 percent increase in Bolivian gold exports coincides with other major shifts in 

the regional gold trade tied to TOC activity and massive money-laundering. It was in this time 

period that the FARC in Colombia began to take over extensive illicit gold mining operations, 

finding the gold operations to be both less risky and more profitable than growing coca leaves 

and producing cocaine.

Taken together, all of these events highlight the growing role of the unregulated gold trade 

in money-laundering activities. Furthermore, the inexplicable jump in Bolivian gold exports 

indicates Bolivia is likely playing an important but relatively unstudied role in that trade.

Phantom Projects and Irrational Economic Spending

With the gold boom in Bolivia (2013–2014) came a boom of another type—the investment, on paper, of millions of dollars in state-run projects that never materialized and made 

little economic sense. This is a path well-trodden by other governments in the Bolivarian Alliance and one that usually indicates significant money-laundering activities. One Bolivian investigator monitoring the “ghost projects” estimated that the government has announced the 

appropriation of some $2 billion in public expenditures toward such endeavors. The examples 

noted in the media include:

■ A $19.1 million airport modernization and expansion in the city of Oruro to meet international standards, dubbed the “airport with no passengers” and one with no sign of 

significant investment and no international flights.56

■ The Hugo Chávez soccer stadium in the coca-producing region of Chimoré, in the 

middle of the Chapare jungle, at a cost of $2.7 million. While the stadium has a capacity 

for 15,000 fans, only 4,000 people live in the town.57

■ A bus terminal that on paper cost $563,000, although the terminal had been built by the 

time the new project was announced.58
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■ Two investments totaling $462,000 to build a market where only a shed exists.59

A further seemingly inexplicable economic decision, involving tens of millions of dollars, is currently being undertaken between the Morales government and the government of 

Salvador Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador, another member of the Bolivarian Alliance. Over the 

past 18 months, Bolivia has purchased some $201 million in Salvadoran treasury notes (letras 

de Tesoro) that are scheduled to yield more than $4 million in profits for the Bolivian government.60 El Salvador is on the verge of insolvency, and Bolivia has seen only limited economic 

growth in recent years, making such a purchase on paper not a good fit for either government.

The initial purchase, undertaken in January 2017, was denounced by the limited political 

opposition that exists in both countries as being highly irregular and nonsensical. It seemed 

the purchase had not gone through when the Morales government announced it had fired the 

head of the Bolivian Central Bank for what were dubbed “treasury notes of the lowest quality.”61

However, the purchase did go forward, at least on paper, and Bolivia received its first payment 

with interest in June. Market analysts stated that this type of government-to-government transaction is often used to justify the movement of large sums of money in ways that make them 

appear to be legal.

The Role of the PCC

As in Paraguay, the PCC has gained a significant foothold in Bolivia, primarily in the Santa 

Cruz and Beni regions that border Brazil. The most visible evidence of this incursion is a series 

of high-profile bank robberies and the proliferation of cocaine laboratories under PCC control. 

As in Paraguay, the PCC presence has also created a significant increase in violence in areas 

that had remained relatively peaceful, despite the longstanding, widespread presence of more 

traditional and less violent TOC groups.

In the area of Santa Cruz, there has been a major uptick in the number of cocaine processing laboratories discovered and dismantled by authorities; in 2015, 59 laboratories were 

dismantled in Santa Cruz, including a number of large labs with foreign operators. While it 

seems that a number of the foreigners involved in the trade are Colombian, Brazilians were also 

reportedly part of the operations.62

Another Brazilian gang and a key rival of the PCC, Comando Vermelho (Red Command), 

has been engaging in extortion in the same area, as well as running a high-profile kidnapping 

operation in Cobija in April 2017.63 Bolivian government officials have expressed concern as 

Brazilian gangs begin to form a more permanent fixture in the country and the Andean region 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

as a whole. Bolivian Interior Minister Carlos Romero, commenting on recent criminal activity 

by Brazilian gangs in his country, stated that the groups “continue carrying out actions aimed at 

monopolizing the control of drugs.”64

As in Paraguay, the PCC are also engaging in high-profile robberies to increase their cash 

flow. In a July 13, 2017, assault, PCC operatives robbed a Santa Cruz jewelry store using military-grade weapons.65 This followed a March 2017 heist, when PCC affiliates (with Bolivian 

partners) attacked a Brinks Bank convoy, also in Santa Cruz. The convoy was carrying approximately $1.3 million in cash.66 All of this evidence suggests a gradual expansion process by the 

PCC and other growing TOC groups in Bolivia, a process that aims to control not only trafficking routes but also multiple levels of the supply chain of these illicit commodities.

When considering critical centers of TOC convergence that receive comparatively little 

attention, the evidence outlined here demonstrates that Bolivia is one of those key areas. The 

ability of the Morales administration to shield activities within the country from international 

scrutiny creates significant challenges to gaining a good understanding of Bolivia’s ties to TOC 

networks. Despite these obstacles, this analysis shows that it is nevertheless worthwhile to continue improving awareness of Bolivia’s role within both the Bolivarian Alliance and illicit regional commodity chains.

Nicaragua and the ALBA Structure

In contrast to the two case studies considered thus far, Nicaragua under President Daniel 

Ortega shows what a consolidated Bolivarian criminalized state becomes after most opposition is vanquished or bought and the stability of the regime is secured. Because of the reach of 

the government, the effectiveness of the Russian-assisted intelligence apparatus, and the lack 

of publicly available documentation (records have been illegally hidden under public records 

laws), carrying out research in Nicaragua is increasingly difficult, particularly as Ortega has 

escalated his anti-U.S. rhetoric and aggressively courted the Russians and Iranians as his primary allies.

Despite these difficult circumstances, IBI Consultants field researchers have compiled a 

great deal of information on the growing role of Nicaragua within the ALBA (the Bolivarian 

Alliance), as well as the key role the Ortega government plays as a facilitator for multiple TOC 

groups and extra-regional actors. These actors include Russian intelligence, the Ramiro Network, FARC, Sinaloa Cartel, and others. The information in this section is based on that field 

research unless otherwise cited.
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Nicaragua, despite its small geographic and economic size, is a cornerstone of the Bolivarian Alliance; Ortega possesses proven revolutionary credentials, having successfully led the 

Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front or, FSLN) revolution that toppled the Somoza dictatorship in 1979. He has a decades-long relationship with 

the FARC, numerous drug cartels, and international revolutionary movements, including Hizballah, the Basque separatist Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty or, ETA), 

the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), and others. Ortega’s prominence in the Bolivarian 

bloc has only grown in recent months, as other key allies in El Salvador and Ecuador suffer serious electoral defeats. He has also moved aggressively to ensure the survival of his government 

by naming his wife, Rosario Murillo, as his vice president, a position from which she exercises 

considerable power.

However, Ortega and Murillo have also faced unexpected turbulence in April and May 

2018. A series of mass protests against the government have gained momentum and the government’s violent response has grown, leaving at least 47 dead by May 10, 2018. While the 

mass marches initially began to protest cuts in the nation’s social security system, they quickly 

morphed into widespread demands that Ortega and Murillo resign. Perhaps most alarming for 

the Ortega government, the marches and violent protests, which have been rolling, weekly occurrences over the past 6 weeks, have been especially strong in León and other traditional Sandinista strongholds rather than confined to Managua, the capital.67 It is the first time in a decade 

that the Ortega structure has faced significant and widespread discontent and, while unlikely to 

result in regime change, has significantly weakened his grip on power.

Yet Ortega has demonstrated a capacity to cling to power and ensure his legacy before. 

When Ortega suffered an unexpected electoral defeat in 1990 that ended his first decade in 

power, among his last acts in office was to grant citizenship to 990 foreign nationals, including 

dozens of wanted Spanish ETA and Red Brigade terrorists.68 He also coined the phrase “governing from below” to describe the FSLN’s strategy of sabotaging each successive government 

from his 1990 defeat to winning the presidency again in 2006. The strategy entailed crippling 

the legislative assembly and carrying out mass demonstrations that undermined his successors.

Given that Ortega controls the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government, he has been able to carry out state-sponsored criminal activity with far less scrutiny 

than most of his allies. This has permitted him to set up a series of money-laundering and 

drug trafficking operations across the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, where they can operate with 

state-guaranteed impunity.
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Nicaragua now exports significantly more gold that it produces, and numerous groups 

from Colombia, Russia, and elsewhere have paid above market rates for gold mines that produce very little gold. Such activities are consistent indicators of illicit economic activity and 

funds. Nicaragua is not the only Bolivarian Alliance nation to demonstrate this type of behavior. Suriname, as noted, also operates a massive state-sponsored money-laundering operation 

through a fictional gold refinery.69 The two countries are natural allies in their pursuit of illicit 

activities; Ortega’s political and territorial control allows him to act as a key facilitator and enabler of countries like Suriname.

Recent media reports indicate that such an alliance is in motion. Nicaragua and Suriname announced in August 2017 that that the two governments were signing an “Agreement of 

Friendship and Cooperation, with the aim of improving bilateral commercial activity, among 

other objectives.”70 Given that bilateral trade between the two nations is less than $500,000 a 

year and tourism is nonexistent, the promise of direct flights from Managua to Paramaribo is 

likely not related to legitimate economic ties. Senior officials from both governments promised 

to share their experiences in economic sectors where both countries were active, the primary 

one being gold.

The Role of Russia in Nicaragua

In addition to the facilitation of the criminal activities noted above, Nicaragua has recently overseen a growing and visible presence of Russian diplomats, businessmen, and military 

personnel. With the collapse of Venezuela, Nicaragua has become a central piece in Russia’s 

regional strategy, at least as important as Cuba. Ortega, a staunch ally of the Soviets and Cubans 

during the Cold War, views Russia as his natural ally, particularly as his relationship with the 

United States has fractured over Ortega’s increasingly autocratic governing style.

When Ortega and the FSLN reclaimed the presidency in 2006, the initial raft of bilateral 

agreements with Russia focused on food and agricultural aid and other elements of soft power. 

However, over time the relationship became almost exclusively based on military and security 

cooperation. Ortega’s public attacks on the United States, a signature of his first years in power 

but largely muted in the first years following his re-election, have again escalated to a fever pitch, 

so much so that U.S. diplomats have walked out en masse from events where he has spoken. In 

July 2017, Ortega announced he would seek $17 billion in restitution from the United States for 

American aid to Contra rebels during the 1980s, further souring relations.71

Instead, the Ortega government has made Nicaragua a Russia-friendly base of operations, 

where its military ships can dock, its military aircraft can land, and a permanent force of more 
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than 350 Russian troops can be embedded in different military units across the country.72 Key 

in establishing a Russian military foothold is port access. To that end, knowledgeable sources 

stated that while the much-publicized Nicaragua Canal is now dead,73 a key component of the 

project will go through with Russian financing—the building of deepwater ports on both the 

Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These will give the Russian military permanent access to bases close 

to the United States. The sharp rise in the presence of Russian troops coincides with the decision 

to build the deepwater ports, and rotating units of Russian troops are permanently stationed at 

Puerto Sandino on the Pacific coast and Rosita on the Atlantic coast. “The economic cooperation was a façade,” one analyst told the Washington Post. “What the Russians really wanted was 

a military presence.”74

Apart from its public weapons sales and high-level visits, Russia—through its relations 

with Nicaragua—has staked its boldest claim to providing a presence that directly challenges 

the United States in multiple spheres of influence. This includes the construction of a regional 

center for counternarcotics training, intended to be an alternative to the U.S. training and aimed 

at a primary U.S. interest in the region. There has been limited reporting on the growing Russian presence in Nicaragua and its actions, such as the $80 million purchase of 50 T-72 tanks 

in a country in which tank warfare is unknown and impractical. Russia has also made gifts of 

military equipment to Nicaragua, most recently providing them with two Antonov turbo-prop 

military transport planes.75 Although by no means a massive financial gift, these gestures on the 

part of the Russians have been increasingly well received in Nicaragua, and are another indicator of the growing bond between the two nations.

Russian Penetration in Nicaragua

Like most things Russian in Nicaragua, the public face of the counternarcotics training 

center, located on prime real estate in downtown Managua but showing few signs of being used, 

is deceptive. According to two sources with direct knowledge of events, the center, located about 

100 yards from the construction site of the new Russian embassy, has two subterranean floors 

where only Russians are allowed to enter, and where Russian intelligence services operate stateof-the-art technology for regional espionage efforts. In bronze letters on the side of the building, in both Spanish and Russian, is a plaque proclaiming the building belongs to “the Ministry 

of Interior of the Russian Federation,” rather than the more traditional note that the building 

is a gift from Russia or built by the Russian state. “This clearly was meant to convey that this 

is a building, on foreign soil, of the Russian government,” stated one official familiar with the 

project. Russian government ownership of the building would allow Russian officials to control 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

access to the two basement floors. Since the building was inaugurated in early 2017, three diplomatic sources from countries friendly to the United States have begun experiencing numerous and new types of cyberattacks. A confidential analysis of the attacks by multiple embassies 

concluded that the attacks originated in the Russian compound and were aimed primarily at 

U.S. allies, including Spain—the leading North Atlantic Treaty Organization representative in 

Nicaragua—and Mexico, a country that closely coordinates with the United States on counternarcotics efforts. “We have had three attacks in the first three months, and our communications 

were taken down on March 21 for more than two hours,” stated one diplomatic source. “We had 

never had a problem like that before. We were able to confirm it was the Russians who initiated 

the shutdown.”

Of equal interest is a compound of several buildings being built by the Russians, reported 

to be the regional headquarters of Globalnaya Navigazionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (Global 

Navigation Satellite System), the Russian GPS system that Russia is marketing on a global level 

as an alternative to U.S.-based systems. What is striking about the construction of the multistorey satellite tracking complex is that it is strategically positioned on the rim of the Nejapa volcano above the U.S. Embassy, and all the construction crews and equipment are from Russia. Field 

visits indicate that an elite Nicaraguan military unit heavily guards the area and that the site is 

walled off, with virtually no access for Nicaraguan citizens. The importance of the installations 

was signaled by the January 2017 visit of Russia’s Minister of Interior, police general Vladimir 

Kolokoltsev, who visited the site under construction as well as bases where Russian troops and 

police advisors are stationed, including spending the night at one installation.

Intelligence officials monitoring the Russian activity in Nicaragua believe the new Russian-controlled physical structures, in addition to the new embassy building being constructed 

near the counternarcotics center, represent the largest investment Russia has made in electronic 

surveillance in Latin America since the Lourdes listening station was built in Cuba.

Mutual Benefits

There are multiple benefits to both the Russians and Nicaraguans in this expanded relationship. The Russians will likely try to find ways to access the ARCOS-1 fiber optics cable that 

runs down the Caribbean coast of Central America from Miami, a main artery of hemispheric 

communications. The cable has landing sites in both Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields, in Nicaragua, near where one of the deepwater ports is being built. In addition, the new capabilities allow 

Russia to monitor regional electronic traffic of the United States and its allies, as well as create 

the capacity to disrupt those communications if desired. In turn, Ortega and his followers get 
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access to the most sophisticated Russian tools for monitoring their political enemies and feeding the growing state security apparatus.

As noted, the permanent Russian military presence has also been growing steadily in Nicaragua in recent years. The primary base of operations is within the motorized infantry brigade 

(BIM) in Managua. Within the BIM, the Russian troops have an air-conditioned (unlike their 

Nicaraguan counterparts) barracks known as El Hotelito. The BIM is the center of military-tomilitary coordination and is under the command of General Carlos Eduardo Duarte Orozco, a 

Soviet-trained confidant of Ortega who is the chief liaison with the Russian military.

The Russian military also maintains a smaller presence in Villanueva, in Chinandega Department (state), from where they have easy access to Puerto Corinto on the Pacific coast and 

where most of the Russian military and construction equipment arrives. There is another small 

permanent Russian presence, as noted above, in Rosita in the Northern Caribbean Autonomous 

Region, a well-worn cocaine trafficking region.

In addition to General Duarte, Nicaraguans that directly deal with the Russians include 

Laureano Ortega, son of the president and vice president; Jacinto Suárez; and Luis Alberto Molina. Suarez is a Soviet-trained intelligence professional who rose through the ranks in Ortega’s first presidency to become the head of the “Fifth Directorate,” the intelligence structure in 

charge of maintaining international relations with armed insurgencies in Latin America such as 

the FARC in Colombia, as well as the Red Brigade in Italy, ETA separatists in Spain, and Irish 

Republican Army in Ireland. Molina is a former ambassador to Moscow for the Ortega government. He studied in Kyiv during the Cold War and speaks fluent Russian. Molina is currently 

deputy foreign minister and acts as the point of contact for different Russian interests.

Additional Suspicious Activity

Two other unusual Russian activities in Nicaragua are worth further exploration but have 

not yet been fully researched. First, there have been odd statements by Nicaraguan and Russian officials that Russia is buying up large plots of Nicaraguan territory in order to grow food 

products for export back to Russia. In a March 30, 2016, speech to a forum on Russia–Latin 

America relations, Molina stated that Nicaragua had 4.9 million hectares (12.4 million acres) 

of arable land, of which only one-fifth was in production. “The rest is waiting for the Russians 

or other foreign investors to position themselves within our country,” Molina stated. He added 

that Russia would be particularly attractive because, in 2012, the two governments had signed 

an agreement protecting investments in each other’s counties.76 There have been numerous Russian delegations surveying land for sale on the Atlantic, a coastal terrain that is hot, humid, 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

and historically unproductive for most agricultural products. Interestingly, most of the land the 

helicopter-borne delegations have surveyed is in the vicinity of the deepwater ports under construction for Russian ships. The likelihood, therefore, that the land is actually being purchased 

to produce agricultural products seems slim.

The second unusual development is the construction and inauguration of the nonfunctioning Mechnikov Biotechnology Plant in Managua. The plant—a joint Russian-Nicaraguan 

venture supposedly designed to provide vaccinations for the region—was inaugurated with 

great fanfare in October 2016 by Laureano Ortega. The Russian state reportedly invested $14 

million in the project while the Nicaraguan government invested $7 million.77

The $50,000-inauguration party, hosted by Laureano at a luxury mansion in the Viejo Santo Domingo neighborhood of Managua, was to celebrate “putting Nicaragua on the world map 

for vaccinations.”78 However, an investigation by La Prensa newspaper found that the equipment 

on display for the inauguration had been rented in an effort to portray the factory as operational 

when in fact it was not. In the end, as the report noted, the plant had “not produced even one 

pill over the course of a year.” Instead, Russia imported 60,000 doses of yellow fever vaccines to 

Nicaragua rather than get the plant operational.79 Given the involvement of Laureano Ortega 

and the official publicity surrounding the plant, the fact that it is not producing anything visible 

is a significant blow to the prestige of the president, his wife, and his son. Key questions remain 

unanswered, including the project’s true initial purpose, and why the First Family has let the 

situation linger so publicly for so long. What is clear is that 10 months after its completion it 

remained idle. By October 2017, reports from the Nicaraguan press indicated that the plant was 

on the “verge of collapse” after the discovery and publication of a number of financial irregularities on the project.80

Given the analysis outlined above, it is evident that Nicaragua has become a clear center of 

convergence of extra-regional actors and TOC. From a willingness to accept and support Russian influence in the region, to proving a willing partner in massive criminal money-laundering 

operations, the country—and in particular the leadership of Daniel Ortega—merits serious and 

continued consideration.

Connecting the Dots

The territories and commodities that this analysis discusses help to outline a number of 

key areas throughout the region that enable the growth of TOC groups: the facilitation of illicit 

activity within criminalized states like Nicaragua and Bolivia, the minimal or nonexistent state 

presence in the border regions of Paraguay and Peru, and the growing profitability of illegally 
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mined gold as a commodity and money-laundering modality. As is also clear from the analysis above, none of these issues can be understood without determining the linkages between 

them—how illegal gold mining in Peru can feed criminal operations in Bolivia, or how Nicaragua’s facilitation of the FARC network allows for a secure, reliable method to launder the former 

insurgency’s ill-gotten gains.

In the subsequent sections, we provide an overview of how these tools, when integrated 

into a sophisticated criminal structure, can be used to carry out a wide array of illicit activities. 

Over the past 5 years, IBI Consultants has researched the Ramiro Network—embedded in the 

highest level of the government of El Salvador—and its ties to transnational organized crime in 

Venezuela and Nicaragua, FARC groups, and allies in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.81 IBI Consultants now assesses that this network and its allies, aptly called a “network of 

networks,” is moving into a new and more sophisticated phase of operations that will be harder 

to research and more difficult for the U.S. Government to attack should it want to do so. Paradoxically, in a clear demonstration of the weaknesses of sophisticated criminal networks, the 

Ramiro Network is both expanding to new levels of sophistication and under unprecedented 

strain across the region. This analysis details the regional reach of the network, as well as the 

variety of internal and external factors that have weakened the network leaders in El Salvador 

and Nicaragua and undermined their standing in the region.

The Transition

Over the course of its research, IBI Consultants identified a triumvirate of state and quasistate oil companies—Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (Petroleum of Venezuela or, PDVSA), El Salvador’s ALBA Petróleos, and Nicaragua’s Albanisa—that served as crucial nodes of the initial 

phase of the network’s primary criminal operation. The purpose of this was to move FARC 

funds from the jungles of Colombia into the international financial system in anticipation of the 

successful conclusion of the peace negotiations with the Colombian government. Importantly, 

all three entities, along with the leaders of the Ramiro Network and FARC, share a deep ideological belief in radical, anti-U.S. populism. The structure was also used to aid and abet the Venezuela regime in its criminal activities. Because the oil business could hide large sums of money 

moving through the international financial system, most of the laundering activity centered on 

fictitious oil exports from PDVSA to its partners in Central America.

All three oil companies shared a common ownership. PDVSA, under the leadership of 

Asdrúbal Chávez, cousin and confidant of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, is the 

majority owner of both ALBA Petróleos (60 percent) and Albanisa (51 percent). This network of 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

shell companies, which has interlocking directorships and does hundreds of millions of dollars 

in business with the other annually, appears to have fulfilled its primary purpose: providing the 

financial architecture to move billions of dollars—much of it from the FARC—to safe harbor, 

largely through Panama and then to offshore jurisdictions further afield such as the British 

Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, and Bermuda. Given the vigor with which the Colombian attorney 

general has pursued FARC funds inside Colombia, holding the assets outside the country is far 

safer.82 Furthermore, it is evident that at least some key elements of the FARC remain enmeshed 

in TOC activities; as noted above, a senior FARC commander was recently detained for conspiring to sell 10 tons of cocaine after the peace agreement—cocaine provided by dissident groups 

of the FARC that failed to demobilize.

The structure’s leadership included Tareck El Aissami (a designated drug kingpin by the 

United States) and Elías Jaua in Venezuela (a designated drug kingpin by the United States), 

Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and José Luis Merino in El Salvador. It has now virtually collapsed. 

After creating a paper empire of businesses, most of which engaged in little real commercial 

activity, the twin Alba structures in El Salvador and Nicaragua have simply disappeared.

This particular money-laundering structure was not designed to be permanent. IBI Consultants assesses that the structure moved some $1.2 billion through the ALBA Petróleos corporate structure, and at least as much—and likely more—through the Albanisa structure in 

Nicaragua, although IBI Consultants does not have the documentation to identify the operation 

with the same granular detail as it has in the Salvadoran operation.

The financial figures for both enterprises are striking, given that there is little likelihood 

they are real economic earnings. On paper, the business model was designed so that PDVSA 

would sell ALBA Petróleos and Albanisa oil at a discounted price, with up to half the debt to 

be repaid over 20 years at 1 percent interest. When the businesses started in 2007, PDVSA was 

flush with oil and the market price was above $100 a barrel. However, both companies’ earnings 

continued to inexplicably grow strongly even as the price of oil plummeted and PDVSA ran out 

of oil to sell them.

As ALBA Petróleos shut down its businesses beginning in early 2017, it stated that it had 

loaned most of its earnings—$1.1 billion of the $1.3 billion it had generated—to a series of 

companies in Panama that the ALBA Petróleos leadership controlled. None of the companies 

in Panama showed any indication of economic activity. The money was then moved to Panama 

and then further offshore as loans to front companies.

In Nicaragua, IBI Consultants has reported on instances in which this methodology, a favorite of Ortega, was already used to great effect in state projects such as the nonexistent refinery 
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named El Supremo Sueño de Bolívar (Bolivar’s Supreme Dream) to be jointly built with Venezuela at a cost of $4.6 billion. The site of the “refinery” holds some old rusting fuel storage tanks, 

surrounded by a dilapidated fence guarded by a single watchman. There are no workers engaged 

at the project, yet over the past decade the Nicaraguan government claims to have spent more 

than $600 million on the enterprise. IBI Consultants has found numerous other companies, controlled by confidants of the Ramiro Network, that bear similar hallmarks of being enterprises 

operating under state protection but actually designed to launder funds.

Since the dismantlement of the oil-based laundering scheme, a new laundering architecture, reportedly open to a broader group of illicit actors, has emerged. The new methodology 

focuses on a more sustainable operation that can absorb large incoming illicit revenue streams 

on an ongoing basis and can make them virtually impossible to distinguish or seize. Thus, the 

relatively simple petroleum-based architecture, while highly effective, is being replaced by a 

much more complex system. This new system incorporates ongoing illicit revenue streams from 

drug trafficking and other criminal activities. There are four sets of actors in the theater, who, 

while not new, are significantly changing the dynamics of operations:

■ Venezuelan groups tied to Tareck El Aissami, often with extensive U.S. operations, 

which continue to operate largely without interference to move money and illicit products 

through the remaining oil export structures of PDVSA.

■ Mexican drug tracking organizations, primarily the Sinaloa Cartel, which now maintain a physical presence and control laboratories in Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of the 

Northern Triangle of Central America, and bring a new style and discipline to cocaine 

production and movement.

■ Groups of FARC “dissidents” who still reportedly maintain close ties to the FARC general secretariat. The secretariat had promised to fully demobilize under the terms of the 

2016 peace agreement and turn over all the group’s assets, but is in violation of both commitments. These groups control key coca producing and processing areas and gold deposits, both lucrative forms of ongoing financial gain.

■ Russian business groups operating in the region, which have demonstrated a willingness to help use and repatriate the funds derived from illicit activities on behalf of the 

Ramiro Network and its allies.
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

The Ramiro Network’s operations, both since their inception and in their current iteration, 

ably demonstrate the ways in which forgotten territories and commodities can be leveraged 

to generate and hide massive gain in criminal proceeds, especially when laundered with the 

complicity and under the protection of the state. It also exposes the particular challenges for 

U.S. policymakers in tackling this and similar illicit networks; when TOC groups are able both 

to form cooperative agreements with one another and to co-opt the institutions of the state to 

protect and further their activities, they make formidable adversaries for rule-of-law initiatives.

The new structures rely on using the existing criminalized state architecture, in which 

these networks exercise a high degree of political and economic power (El Salvador, Venezuela, 

Nicaragua, and Bolivia) to blend the illicit resources that are being held overseas with state 

enterprises and megaprojects to launder the funds back into the legal economy. Because of the 

involvement of the state in most cases, identifying and tracing the origin of the illicit funds is 

much more difficult. In addition, the criminalized states provide stability and impunity, two 

elements highly valued by both illicit and licit businesses.

The Role of Albanisa

When Albanisa was founded in 2007, immediately after Ortega’s election, it was a Venezuelan enterprise rather than a Nicaraguan one. As mentioned, PDVSA owns 51 percent of 

the corporation, while Nicaragua’s Petróleos de Nicaragua (Petronic) owns 49 percent. While 

Asdrúbal José Chávez, the cousin of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, serves as president, the vice president was José Francisco López, a senior member of Ortega’s inner circle and 

simultaneously treasurer of Ortega’s Sandinista party.

Like ALBA Petróleos, Albanisa rapidly grew into a multiheaded corporation with interlocking directorates. In turn, these subsidiaries feed money to one another, while driving all 

legitimate competition into bankruptcy. This strategy provides an ideal structure for laundering 

large amounts of money. Due to the opacity of the corporate structure and absence of documentation, IBI Consultants has relied on data mining and field interviews to gain a better, albeit 

partial, mapping of the network.

In early 2018, Freedom House published one of the few serious attempts to unravel the 

financial structure of Albanisa and its ties to the Ortega family. The study, based on rare access 

to financial documents, found that Albanisa had put $1.5 billion into two trusts in Banco Corporativo, a bank controlled by the Ortega family and described as “an Albanisa company.”83

This valuable window into the amount of money that Albanisa has set aside in opaque and 
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untraceable accounts offers a glimpse into the amount of money the corporation handles outside of all budgetary or congressional oversight or review.

A partial listing of the companies under the Albanisa umbrella, compiled from opensource data mining, includes:

■ Alba Caruna, a savings cooperative whose capital increased from $3,000 (before being 

taken over by Albanisa) to $400 million in 2011, the last year with available records. It 

currently functions as the mechanism to transfer funds within Albanisa to and from other 

entities as a second-tier bank.

■ Alba Infraestructura, created by Alba Caruna in 2009 and the holder of most of the 

main infrastructure projects under way by the Nicaraguan government. It has a long history of both failure to complete works as well as massive budget overruns.

■ Alba Alimentos, which is responsible for exporting foodstuffs to Venezuela to repay 

Nicaragua’s oil debt. The subsidiary owns the luxury Seminole Hotel in Managua, and a 

Salvadoran member of ALBA Petróleos sits on the board, showing the ties between the 

two corporate structures.

■ Alba Generación, which runs Albanisa’s nine electrical power plants. It has been documented hiring its sister companies to carry out infrastructure improvements and forcing 

its competitors out of business.

■ Alba Transporte, which controls the urban public transit systems, including buses and 

taxis donated by Russia. The price of maintaining the buses, which the government forced 

the transportation cooperatives to use, and modifying them to operate in a tropical climate has led to demands to switch to other models.

■ Alba Talleres, the company formed to maintain the Russian buses and taxis, is owned 

and operated by Alba Transporte.

■ Alba Depósitos, which operates the oil storage tanks owned by Albanisa. The tanks 

were confiscated from Esso Standard Oil and thus were free for Alba Depósitos.
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

■ Alba Equipos, which manages a fleet of heavy construction equipment, mostly used by 

other Alba entities, at costs far higher than free market rates.

■ Alba Tecnosa, another construction company originally owned by Albanisa Vice President Jose Francisco López Centeno before becoming part of the Alba family. Tecnosa in 

turn owns 51 percent of a company named Tectasa. The other 49 percent is owned by the 

Russian state of Tatarstan, making it a highly unusual company.

■ Alba Puertos, dedicated to building and maintaining ports, particularly the deepwater 

ports under construction in Bilwi and Monkey Point on the Caribbean coast and Puerto 

Sandino on the Pacific coast. The Russian navy will have unlimited access to those ports.

As a key convergence center, Nicaragua offers other benefits to the Bolivarian Alliance 

and its allies. Nicaragua’s Banco Corporativo, under the direct control of Ortega and López, is 

reported by reliable sources close to the Ortega family and in the banking community to be one 

of the main repositories of funds for the FARC and Ramiro Network. The bank is located with 

Albanisa in the same office. IBI Consultants has also been mapping potential FARC investments 

in Nicaragua. The key player in this structure is Rubén Dario Granda, brother of senior FARC 

commander Rodrigo Granda, designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a major drug 

trafficker and one of the FARC leaders closest to the Venezuelan regime. One of the Grandaassociated front companies was recently identified as a gold mining operation.

Granda, a lawyer by profession, has been living in Nicaragua for 5 years after requesting 

political asylum there. Operating under Ortega’s protection, Granda has been working to establish a series of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that will work only in FARC-controlled 

territory in Colombia in the postwar era. Through these NGOs, the FARC will be able to funnel money back to itself in a virtually untraceable fashion. Granda has also been reportedly 

investing FARC money in the suddenly booming gold mines on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, 

where the running joke is that the mines produce already-refined gold bars rather than unrefined gold because most of the gold coming from the mines is clandestinely transported to Nicaragua before being exported as Nicaraguan gold. Colombian gold is under international scrutiny because of possible FARC ties, but Nicaraguan gold attracts no additional attention in the 

notoriously unregulated world of precious metals trading. As discussed, official gold production 

and export figures demonstrate that Nicaragua consistently exports more gold than it produces. 
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The FARC Dissidents

The willingness of Central American leaders to support the clandestine efforts of the FARC 

and FARC dissident structures in carrying out their illicit activities and laundering the proceeds constitutes a significant threat to the fledgling peace process between the FARC and the 

government of Colombia. Furthermore, as the FARC leadership seeks to launder and use these 

funds from dissident groups to support their political activities, they are able to exploit convergence centers in order to accomplish their goals. A thorough discussion of the Ramiro Network, 

therefore, must consider the FARC dissidents and their ongoing activities.

As noted, when the peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC was 

signed in November 2016, some key FARC commanders announced that they were refusing to 

accept the peace agreement and were subsequently formally “expelled” from the party. Since the 

dissident leaders “left” the FARC, their relationship with the FARC political leadership behind 

closed doors continues to be the subject of debate among analysts and policymakers; reports 

from as recently as April 2018 demonstrate that the FARC’s ties to drug trafficking and, by 

extension, the dissident commanders, likely continue to present day.84 Regardless of these reports, it is evident that FARC dissident structures have proved to be one of the largest security 

threats to the government of Colombia, as well as a major component of the new illicit trafficking structures. As the arrest of Jesús Santrich, a FARC commander, on drug trafficking charges 

demonstrates, some of these dissident structures are tied to the secretariat, whose leadership is 

supposed to be demobilized and no longer linked to violence or illicit activity.

While the FARC secretariat has categorically denied any relationship with the dissident 

groups, there are several factors now showing that those denials ring hollow. First, the internal 

messages of the FARC’s own leadership bely this denial of cooperation. Second, the government 

has identified and seized more than $300 million in FARC assets inside Colombia, despite the 

secretariat’s repeated statements that it had no assets to turn over.

Just how conspiratorial the FARC leadership has remained has been shown in these recent 

seizures of FARC assets, totaling almost $400 million—more than the $330 million in total 

assets the group declared at the end of war (a list that included brooms, pots and pans, and 

trash cans).85 The Colombian government landed its biggest blow recently, when Colombian authorities seized a national supermarket chain with 60 stores that had been operating as a FARC 

money-laundering front for more than a decade.86

In a January 2018 letter to Party members, FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, 

otherwise known as “Timochenko,” reminded the party faithful to maintain a “conspiratorial 
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spirit, revolutionary vigilance, and constructive distrust” of the government. He stated this was 

necessary to avoid the state “annihilating us.” “It is very important to maintain discipline in 

every sense,” he wrote. “Be careful what you write or say on the phone, we must maintain the 

principle of making sure that if we are going north, they believe we are going south, and set up 

other ways to communicate besides the telephone, and if you have to call, have pre-established 

codes to use.”87

These and other law enforcement investigations show that the FARC is not only interested 

in continuing its lucrative illicit activities, but also wishes to maintain a degree of separation between its criminal and political arms. Furthermore, it is evident that the contemporary criminal 

landscape in Colombia makes it possible for the FARC to accomplish both goals. The history of 

decades of armed conflict in Colombia has made the government’s demobilization efforts particularly difficult, as the presence of multiple armed groups allows combatants to simply change 

groups and keep fighting.

As the United Nations (UN) verification mission in Colombia noted in its December 

2017 report:

The recent history of Colombia, with the recycling of combatants from one conflict 

to another, is a reminder that proper reintegration is key to guaranteeing nonrepetition. The reintegration of FARC-EP [Ejército del Pueblo or, People’s Army]

members involves a set of complex challenges, including the continuing presence 

of illegal armed groups; thriving illicit economies in many of the areas in which 

the reintegration process is taking place; a model of productive reintegration that 

is hampered by the isolation and lack of infrastructure that characterizes rural 

areas; the lack of experience in Colombia with collective reintegration; and finally, 

reintegration provisions, agreed in the last phase.88

UN officials in Colombia acknowledge that more than half of the approximately 7,500 

FARC combatants who demobilized and were to stay in reintegration camps had simply walked 

out and their whereabouts were unknown. The desertions average about 200 people a month, 

the majority of whom are believed to have joined other armed groups. This information helps 

explain why IBI Consultants assesses that it is credible to assume that the dissident FARC groups 

number well over 1,500 combatants.

IBI Consultants field research shows that well-structured blocs of FARC combatants control key coca growing territory on the Ecuadoran border (formerly the 48th Front); the cocaine 
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producing and gold mining territory on the southern Venezuela border (formerly the Acasio 

Medina Front and First Front); and key gold and coltan mining areas inside Venezuela, which 

operate under the protection of the Venezuelan military (controlled by FARC commander Géner Garciá Molina, otherwise known as “Jhon 40”). “They are using the same transit corridors 

they have used historically, but they call themselves different names now,” stated one Colombian 

official. “They are smaller in number, but [they are] merging with other criminal groups or the 

ELN (the only formal Marxist insurgency left fighting in Colombia) and keeping control of their 

old supply and trafficking routes.”89

In some cases, the FARC designated some of its cadres to integrate with ELN structures on 

the ground to engage in criminal activity, particularly the smuggling of gasoline from Venezuela. In other cases, the FARC groups ally with and occasionally fight with other criminal bands. 

“There is a fusion of selected FARC combatants who didn’t demobilize, invisible people to the 

military, with the ELN forces, a clandestine transitioning to the ELN,” stated one official. “They 

are keeping the same corridors for mobility. The dynamic never really changes.”90

The relationship between the FARC dissidents and Central American leaders clearly demonstrates the symbiosis that exists between different groups and the kinds of illicit activity 

across regional borders. It is critical, therefore, to understand these connections, particularly 

because such information can help identify ways to counteract criminal networks and ensure 

hemispheric security.

Conclusions

The 2017 National Security Strategy, like the 2011 Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, correctly identified that TOC/terror convergence is a reality and poses a significant security threat. The most recent strategy also correctly identifies criminalized states as key 

actors in the new convergence mosaic on a global level.

However, this lens is seldom applied to understanding the security threats emerging from 

Latin America. This study shows that there are clear examples of TOC groups taking advantage 

of territories, commodities, and methodologies that incorporate convergence and criminalized 

states into the toolbox of expanding illicit activities. TOC groups use these tactics, in turn, 

to both maximize their profits and minimize their risk, while fraying the social fabric of the 

communities where they operate and undermining the rule of law. In some instances, state 

governments that host TOC struggle to curtail the scope and breadth of their activities; in other 

instances, specifically in the case of the Bolivarian Alliance, TOC activity is encouraged and 
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

facilitated by the state, which uses criminal proceeds as a revenue source for top leaders and 

their political projects.

While some have argued that the deeply criminalized Bolivarian project should be left to 

collapse under the weight of their leaders’ corruption, the cases of Nicaragua, Venezuela, and 

others demonstrate how TOC activity within a consolidated criminalized state can be virtually impossible to root out. Indeed, rather than collapsing, as might be expected in Venezuela, 

President Nicolás Maduro has demonstrated an iron grip on power in recent months as millions of Venezuelans continue to suffer. Thus, while countries with stronger electoral and democratic institutions (like Ecuador and Argentina) may eventually roll back attempts to co-opt and 

control institutions by a criminalized leader, these outcomes are not inevitable. U.S. efforts, in 

cooperation with Latin American partners, to identify and shutter the commodities, territorial 

control, and financial structures that allow TOC to thrive can improve democratic governance 

and further U.S. security interests in the region.

This analysis considers a number of critical factors that currently receive comparatively 

little attention from the United States. In Paraguay and the adjoining Tri-Border Area, the PCC, 

radical Islamist groups, and others ably use lax border controls and the disinterest of regional 

and international authorities to grow their revenues with few checks. In Bolivia and Nicaragua, 

two of the key leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance, we see that figures like Juan Ramón Quintana 

are allowed to flourish and that coordination among the Bolivarian allies has created massive 

and strikingly similar money-laundering opportunities through co-optation of state institutions. Foreign actors like Russia benefit from alliances with criminalized states, where they 

stand to gain new centers of operation in the hemisphere. In all of these spaces, actors like the 

FARC dissidents can access the resources they need to carry out and further their criminal enterprises, often rising violent crime rates as they fight other armed groups for territorial control. 

The easy access and remarkable profitability of illegal gold makes some territories increasingly 

valuable, as TOC groups can trade in a commodity that is hundreds of times more profitable 

and easier to transport than cocaine. Ultimately, we see that all of these factors converge into a 

“network of networks” within the Ramiro Network, a criminal enterprise capable of generating 

and hiding massive criminal profits in plain sight.

Left unchecked, these networks and their extra-regional allies, primarily united by a doctrine of asymmetrical warfare against the United States, will become a Tier One threat. The 

dynamics of the illicit trade and criminalized states, with the explicitly stated desire to harm 

the United States, provide the perfect conditions for such a danger to emerge. As the National 

Security Strategy notes, more resources are needed to combat these threats. But perhaps more 
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importantly, the threats must be understood at a strategic policy level so that the resources are 

properly allocated toward defeating the networks.
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A Strategic Overview of Latin America

Notes 1National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White 

House, December 2017), available at <www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905-2.pdf>.

2 For a closer look at how criminalized states use transnational organized crime as instruments 

of state policy in Latin America, see Douglas Farah, Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism, and 

Criminalized States: An Emerging Tier-One National Security Priority (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, August 2012).

3 On April 9, 2018, Colombian police arrested a former senior Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) commander named Seuxis Paucis Hernández Solarte, better known by his 

alias Jesús Santrich, on charges of conspiring to export 10 tons of cocaine. The Colombian government 

agreed that, because the conspiracy began after the peace pact was signed, the commander could be extradited to the United States. Colombian intelligence and law enforcement officials had long believed 

the FARC general secretariat, of which Santrich was a member, remained in contact with several of the 

groups that had declared themselves in dissent after the peace pact was signed and continued to engage 

in the production and trafficking of cocaine, as well as illicit gold trafficking. For more information 

on the investigation and arrest, see Mimi Yagoub, “Four Troubling Takeaways from FARC Leader’s 

Arrest,” InSight Crime, April 12, 2018, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/4-troublingtakeaways-from-farc-leaders-arrest/>.

4 For example, a recent survey from a national newspaper found that in El Salvador, where the 

MS-13 and 18th Street gangs exercise significant territorial and economic control, 42 percent of respondents reported that the gangs were the entities that truly controlled the country, while just 12 percent 

of respondents believed the government to be running the country. Regional experts point out that the 

data underline the massive threat that gangs can pose to the authority and rule of law of democratic 

states. For more information, see Parker Asmann, “El Salvador Citizens Say Gangs Not Government 

‘Rule’ the Country,” InSight Crime, November 8, 2017, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news/

brief/el-salvador-citizens-say-gangs-not-government-rules-country/>.

5 In recent months, both the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador and the FARC in Colombia have suffered serious electoral defeats, with the FMLN garnering the 

worst results since they became a mainstream political party and the FARC winning less than 0.5 percent of the national vote. For more information see “Ruling FMLN Suffers Historical Electoral Upset,” 

The Economist Intelligence Unit, March 8, 2018, available at <http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?artic

leid=76502391&Country=El%20Salvador&topic=Politics>. See also Joe Parkin Daniels, “Colombian 

Former Rebels Shunned as Critics of Peace Deal Dominate Election,” The Guardian, March 12, 2018, 

available at <www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/12/farc-former-colombian-rebels-cast-voteselections>.

6 For more information on convergence theory and its impact on the study of transnational 

organized crime, see Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer, eds., Convergence: Illicit Networks 

and National Security in the Age of Globalization (Washington, DC: NDU Press, April 2013). See also 

Douglas Farah, “Convergence in Criminalized States: The New Paradigm,” in Beyond Convergence: 
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World Without Order, ed. Hilary Matfess and Michael Miklaucic (Washington, DC: Center for Complex Operations, October 2016).

7 Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing Risks and Vulnerabilities Associated with Gold, 

Financial Action Task Force Report, July 2015, available at <www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/

reports/ML-TF-risks-vulnerabilities-associated-with-gold.pdf>.

8 Jose de Echave, “La Minería Ilegal en Peru: Entre la informalidad y el delito,” Nueva Sociedad, no. 263, available at <http://nuso.org/media/articles/downloads/7.TC_De_Echave_263.pdf>.

9 United States of America v. Juan P. Granda, 17-MJ-02376, United States District Court for 

the Southern District of Florida, §§ 14–15, 6.

10 Kate Hodal, “Illegal Mines and Local Mafia Take Shine Off Latin American Gold,” The 

Guardian, August 16, 2016, available at <www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/16/

illegal-mines-local-mafia-take-shine-off-latin-american-gold-peru>.

11 “The Nexus of Illegal Gold Mining and Human Trafficking in Global Supply Chains: Lessons from Latin America,” Verité, July 2016, available at <www.verite.org/the-nexus-of-illegal-goldmining-and-human-trafficking-report/>. For further reading, see the Trafficking in Persons Report

(Washington, DC: Department of State, 2016), available at <www.state.gov/documents/organization/258876.pdf>. The report places Bolivia on the Tier 2 watch list for human trafficking. Suriname is 

considered a Tier 3 country (that group includes nations with the lowest enforcement levels), and Peru 

and Ecuador are considered Tier 2 countries. Colombia is ranked as Tier 1.

12 Annual Report 2016 (Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 

March 2017), available at <http://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/global-initiativeannual-report-2016.pdf>.

13 Ibid., 11.

14 There are many instances in which armed groups have clashed in Colombia and neighboring 

countries (Ecuador and Venezuela). See, for example, Jim Wyss and Kyra Gurney, “Dirty Gold Is the 

New Cocaine in Colombia—and It’s Just as Bloody,” Miami Herald, January 16, 2018.

15 Venezuela Investigative Unit, “Battle Over Venezuela Gold Behind Killings of Miners,” 

InSight Crime, March 5, 2018, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/battle-over-goldbetween-venezuelan-military-and-pranes-is-behind-massacres-of-miners/>.

16 Jarrod Demir, Colombia’s Rogue Guerrilla Groups “Expanding and Strengthening”:

Report, Colombia Reports, April 19, 2018, available at <https://colombiareports.com/colombias-rogueguerrilla-groups-expanding-and-strengthening-report/>.

17 Annual Report 2016, 12.

18 Interdiction rates provided by Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera del Perú. Report on file 

with the authors. It is difficult to determine how much this increase was caused by gold trafficking and 

how much is linked to improvements in the interdiction methods employed by the Superintendencia 

Nacional de Administración Tributaria (National Superintendency for Tax Administration).

19 Oscar Castilla, Nelly Luna Amancio, and Fabiola Torres Lopez, “Tracing Latin America’s 

Illegal Gold to the U.S.,” InSight Crime, August 5, 2015, available at <www.insightcrime.org/newsanalysis/tracing-colombia-bolivia-ecuador-illegal-gold-to-us>.

20 Michael Smith and David Voreacos, “Gold Company Manager Charged in Vast Peru-
41

A Strategic Overview of Latin America

vian Smuggling Plot,” Bloomberg, March 16, 2017, available at <www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-16/gold-company-manager-charged-in-vast-peruvian-smuggling-scheme>.

21 Jay Weaver, “Once at Center of ‘Sprawling’ Money Laundering Scheme, Miami Gold Dealers Headed to Prison,” Miami Herald, January 19, 2018, available at <www.miamiherald.com/news/

local/article195552089.html>.

22 Jay Weaver, “Two Miami Men Convicted of Laundering Billions in Amazon Gold,” Miami 

Herald, September 5, 2017, available at <www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article171311497.

html>.

23 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Drugs and Chemical Controls (Washington, DC: Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, March 

2017).

24 “Queman 308 Kg de Cocaína,” ABC Color, January 24, 2017, available at <www.abc.com.

py/edicionimpresa/judiciales-y-policiales/queman-308-kg-de-cocaina-1558573.html>.

25 Tristan Clavel, “Sinaloa Cartel Attempted to Set Up Trafficking Structure in Paraguay,” 

InSight Crime, December 9, 2016, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/sinaloa-cartelattempted-set-up-traffickingstructure-paraguay>.

26 “Apresan en el Paraguay a Uno de los Jefes del Cartel de Sinaloa de México,” ABC Color, 

December 8, 2016, <www.abc.com.py/edicion-impresa/judiciales-y-policiales/apresan-en-el-paraguaya-uno-de-losjefes-del-cartel-de-sinaloa-de-mexico-1545063.html>.

27 “Abren Máquinas Traídas por Cártel de Sinaloa,” ABC Color, December 28, 2016, available 

at <www.abc.com.py/nacionales/abren-maquinas-importadas-por-cartel-de-sinaloa-1551211.html>.

28 Tristan Clavel, “Inside Germany’s Largest-Ever Cocaine Seizure: The Belgium Connection,” InSight Crime, September 18, 2017, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/insidegermanylargest-ever-cocaine-seizure-belgium-connection>.

29 The World Factbook, “Paraguay” (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2018), 

available at <www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pa.html>.

30 Leonardo Coutinho, “Venezuela e Bolívia são suspeitos de esquema estatal de lavagem,” 

Veja (São Paulo), February 23, 2017, available at <http://veja.abril.com.br/mundo/venezuela-e-boliviasao-suspeitos-de-esquema-estatal-de-lavagem/>.

31Rachel Brown, “The Tri-Border Area: A Profile of the Largest Illicit Economy in the Western Hemisphere,” Financial Transparency Coalition, June 15, 2009, available at <https://financialtransparency.org/the-tri-border-area-a-profile-of-the-largest-illicit-economy-in-the-western-hemisphere/>.

32 “Paraguay: Análisis del Sector Transporte,” Corporación Andina de Fomento, 2009, 9, 

available at <http://publicaciones.caf.com/media/1136/IS_Paraguay.pdf>. 

33Cleyton Vilarinio, “Paraguay aspira a convertirse en un gigante del comercio fluvial 

suramericano,” Ultima Hora (Balearic Islands), April 23, 2015, available at <www.ultimahora.com/

paraguay-aspira-convertirse-ungigante-del-comercio-fluvial-suramericano-n890539.html>; see also 

“Ply Me a River: Ebbs and Flows of an Unlikely Marine Superpower,” The Economist, December 24, 

2106, available at <www.economist.com/news/americas/21712130-paraguays-economy-would-wiltwithoutits-waterways-ebbs-and-flows-unlikely-marine>.

34 “Paraguay,” 35.
42 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

35 This grim assessment was provided by U.S. officials, a senior Secretaría Nacional Antidrogas official, a leading anti-drug prosecutor, a Paraguayan intelligence officer, and an active-duty senior 

military official during the lead investigator’s field trip to Paraguay. The consensus was unanimous 

about how deeply flawed and corrupt the system is and the inability to make meaningful progress 

under the current administration.

36 Field interviews in Asunción by lead investigator Douglas Farah, September 2–8, 2017.

37 Internal FARC documents provided to the lead investigator that show Ejército del Pueblo 

Paraguayo (EPP) training in FARC camps in Colombia.

38 “Paraguay’s EPP Rebels Free Two Mennonite Hostages,” BBC, February 5, 2018, available 

at <www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42945657>.

39Rex Hudson, Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border (TBA) of South 

America (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, July 2003), 1, available at 

<www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/TerrOrgCrime_TBA.pdf>.

40Report in possession of the lead investigator.

41 While Comando Vermelho (Red Command) is Brazil’s oldest prison gang and has clashed 

violently in prison with the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), its key rival, experts indicate that the 

PCC has grown far larger and more organized than the Red Command. For more information, see “Red 

Command,” InSight Crime, April 7, 2017, available at <www.insightcrime.org/brazil-organized-crimenews/red-command-profile/>.

42Rogerio Jelmayer, Kejal Vyas, and Samantha Peason, “Brazilian Gang Enlists FARC Rebels 

for Drug Trade,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2017, available at <www.wsj.com/articles/braziliangang-enlists-farc-rebels-for-drug-trade-1485858609>.

43 While the PCC maintains strong control of routes between Paraguay and Brazil, the Familia 

do Norte (Northern Family) gang, another Brazilian prison-gang-turned-trafficking group, controls 

trafficking routes on the border area where Peru, Colombia, and Brazil intersect.

44 David Gagne, “Brazil’s Biggest Gang Sets Sights on Regional Expansion,” InSight Crime, 

May 31, 2017, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/brazil-biggest-gang-sets-sightsregional-expansion/>.

45Reinaldo Chaves, “PCC Cria Narcosul Para Dominar Tráfico Sul-Americano,” Calle2, January 17, 2017, available at <http://calle2.com/pcc-cria-narcosul-para-dominar-trafico-sul-americano/>.

46 It is unclear whether Toumani was allied with other trafficking groups in the region that are 

enemies of the PCC (including the Red Command), but the PCC’s role in ordering and executing the 

assassination is generally undisputed. See David Gagne, “Killing of Mysterious Figure Part of Larger 

Narco War in Paraguay?” InSight Crime, June 16, 2016, available at <www.insightcrime.org/newsbriefs/killing-of-mysterious-figure-part-of-paraguay-narco-war/>.

47Chaves, “PCC Cria Narcosul Para Dominar Tráfico Sul-Americano.”

48 “Paraguay: roban milliones de dólares en as alto commando ‘de pelicula,’” America Noticias, April 24, 2017, available at <www.americatv.com.pe/noticias/internacionales/paraguay-robanmillones-dolares-asalto-comando-pelicula-n273844>.

49 Douglas Farah and Kathryn Babineau, “Suriname: The New Paradigm of a Criminalized 

State,” Global Dispatch, Center for a Secure Free Society, March 2017, available at <www.securefree-
43

A Strategic Overview of Latin America

society.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Global-Dispatch-Issue-3-FINAL.pdf>.

50 All information on Kaloti was included in “Las Rutas del Oro” [The Gold Routes] documentary on illegal mining, from SPDA Actualidad Ambiental, video, 29.28, available at <www.lasrutasdeloro.com/desde-manana-estara-en-linea-el-documental-las-rutas-del-oro/>.

51 Óscar Castilla, Nelly Luna Amancio, and Fabiola Torres López, “The Companies Accused 

of Buying Latin America’s Illegal Gold,” InSight Crime, August 4, 2015, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/the-companies-accused-of-buying-latin-america-illegal-gold>.

52 “Where Does Bolivia Export Gold To?” Observatory for Economic Complexity, 2015, 

available at <http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/bol/show/7108/2015/>.

53 An open-source investigation shows that at least some of the companies also trade with 

NTR Metals, which has recently been the focus of numerous indictments for illegal gold trading in 

U.S. Federal courts.

54 Óscar Castilla, Nelly Luna Amancio, and Fabiola Torres López, “Oro Sucio: la Pista Detás 

del London Bullion Market,” OjoPúblico, June 9, 2015, available at <http://ojo-publico.com/oro-suciola-pista-detras-del-london-bullion-market/>.

55 “Where Does Bolivia Export Gold To?” Observatory for Economic Complexity, 2014, 

available at <http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/bol/show/7108/2014/>.

56 Aline Quispe and Juan Mejía, “Evo inaugural el aeropuerto de Oruro; pide usar transporte 

aéreo,” La Razón (La Paz), February 9, 2013, available at <www.la-razon.com/economia/Evo-inauguraaeropuerto-Oruro-transporte_0_1775822583.html>.

57 “Evo Morales inaugural estadio ‘Comandante Hugo Chávez,’” El Boliviano, June 24, 2015, 

available at <http://elbolivianoenvivo.com/evo-morales-inaugura-estadio-comandante-hugo-chavez/>.

58 “Acusan a Quintana de Gastar Recursos en Obras ‘Fantasma,’” UPI Report LatAm, June 

20, 2009, accessed via LexisNexis.

59 Ibid.

60 “Bolivia recibe primer pago de inversion en letras del Tesoro de El Salvador,” El Diario de 

Hoy (San Salvador), June 8, 2017, available at <www.elsalvador.com/noticias/internacional/359919/

bolivia-recibe-primer-pagode-inversion-en-letras-del-tesoro-de-el-salvador/>.

61 “Despiden al president Banco de Bolivia por hacer negocios con El Salvador,” El Diario 

de Hoy (San Salvador), January 6, 2017, available at <www.elsalvador.com/noticias/negocios/311842/

despiden-a-presidente-bancode-bolivia-por-hacer-negocios-con-el-salvador/>.

62 “Bolivianos y Extranjeros Montan Laboratorios de Cocaína Pura,” Eju TV, June 26, 2016, 

available at <http://eju.tv/2016/06/bolivianos-extranjeros-montan-laboratorios-cocaina-pura/>.

63 Victoria Dittmar, “Brazil Crime Groups Share Territorial Control in Bolivia: Minister,” 

InSight Crime, July 19, 2017; see also David Gagne, “Arrests Suggest Brazilian Gangs Are Deepening 

Presence in Bolivia,” InSight Crime, April 27, 2017.

64 Gagne, “Arrests Suggest Brazilian Gangs Are Deepening Presence in Bolivia.”

65 “Atraco a Joyería en Bolivia termina Como el Asalto más Cruento de la Historia del País,” 

CNN en Español, July 14, 2017, available at <http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2017/07/14/atraco-a-joyeriaen-bolivia-termina-como-el-asalto-mas-cruento-de-la-historia-del-pais/>.

66 “Asaltan Vehículo de Brinks y Se Llevan $US 1.3 Millones en Roboré,” El Deber (Santa 
44 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

Cruz), March 30, 2017, available at <www.eldeber.com.bo/santacruz/Asaltan-un-vehiculo-Brinks-concaudales-en-Robore-20170330-0032.html>.

67 “Salen a las calles en Nicaragua,” El Tiempo/Vanguardia (Barcelona), May 10, 2018, available at <http://periodicoeltiempo.mx/salen-a-las-calles-en-nicaragua/>. 

68 Among the more comprehensive articles on Ortega’s ties to foreign terrorist groups are Tracy Wilkinson, “Nicaragua Pulls Up Red Carpet: Leftists, Idealists, and Fugitives Flocked to Sandinistaled Nation in the 1980s,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1994, A01; Douglas Farah, “Managua Blast Rips 

Lid Off Secret Salvadoran Rebel Cache,” Washington Post, July 14, 1993, A01. Among the terrorists 

granted citizenship was Alessio Casimirri, who ran a popular Italian restaurant, Magica Roma, in Managua, despite being tied to the 1978 murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Several members of 

the Spanish ETA organization were deported, but most of those granted citizenship remain there.

69 See Farah and Babineau, “Suriname.”

70 “Nicaragua y Surinam Buscan Ampliar Comerio Bilateral,” El Nuevo Diario (Managua), 

August 14, 2017, available at <www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/economia/436838-nicaragua-surinam-buscan-ampliar-comercio-bilatera/>.

71 “Dogu le responde a Ortega respecto al cobro de los 17 mil millones de dólares,” NicaraguaPatriaMia, July 29, 2017.

72 This information comes from interviews during field research in June and July 2017, with 

sources with direct knowledge of events. According to sources interviewed, the number of Russian 

troops stationed in Nicaragua grew from 130 to 260 in 2015, and to 460 in 2016.

73 In 2012, the Ortega government negotiated a $50 billion deal with the Hong Kong Nicaragua Development Investment Company, a company with offices in Hong Kong but registered in the 

Cayman Islands. The company was to build a new canal across Nicaragua to compete with the Panama 

Canal and was led by Wang Jing, who was the scion of a major Communist Party leader in China. 

While a reported $600 million was invested in getting the canal under way, the only visible infrastructure is a 5-mile stretch of gravel road. The canal has since simply been abandoned, although, as IBI 

Consultants has reported, it served as a project to both enrich the Ortega family and launder millions of 

dollars through fictitious work invoices.

74 Joshua Partlow, “The Soviet Union Fought the Cold War in Nicaragua. Now Putin’s Russia 

Is Back,” Washington Post, April 8, 2017, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/

the-soviet-union-fought-the-cold-war-in-nicaragua-now-putins-russia-is-back/2017/04/08/b43039b0-

0d8b-11e7-aa57-2ca1b05c41b8_story.html?utm_term=.716998c55288>.

75 Alejandro Sanchez, “Russia Donates Two Antonov Aircraft to Nicaragua,” Jane’s 360, 

February 26, 2018, available at <www.janes.com/article/78181/russia-donates-two-antonov-aircraft-tonicaragua>.

76 “Vicecanciller de Nicaragua invita a iversores extranjeros a comprar tierra en 

su país,” Sputnik News, March 30, 2016, available at <https://mundo.sputniknews.com/

americalatina/201603301058185894-nicaragua-tierras-molina-montevideo/>.

77 Moisés Martinez, “Inauguración de la planta de vacunas Mechnikov fue con equipos 

alquilados,” La Prensa (Managua), March 21, 2017, available at <www.laprensa.com.ni/2017/03/21/

reportajesespeciales/2202516-inauguracion-de-mechnikov>.
45

A Strategic Overview of Latin America

78 “Laureano Ortega y su fiesta privada de 50 mil dólares,” La Prensa TV, May 5, 2017, available at <www.laprensa.com.ni/2017/03/21/reportajes-especiales/2202516-inauguracion-demechnikov>.

79 Martinez, “Inauguración de la planta de vacunas Mechnikov fue con equipos alquilados.”

80 Moisés Martínez, “Planta de vacunas Mechnikoc ‘al borde de colapso,’” La Prensa (Managua) October 26, 2017.

81 See Douglas Farah, “The Criminalized State in Latin America,” in Kingpins and Corruption: Targeting Transnational Organized Crime in the Americas (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, June 2017), available at <www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Kingpins-andCorruption.pdf>.

82 From the first list of self-declared assets that the FARC published in 2017, the Colombian 

attorney general’s office has been highly critical of the FARC leadership and has consistently claimed 

that their lists of assets were a “mockery” and an insult to the victims of the 50-year armed conflict. 

See “Colombia’s FARC Rebels Say Assets Worth $324 million,” Reuters, August 25, 2017. 

83 “ALBANISA: Cooperación Venezolana en Nicaragua 2008-2017,” El Tiempo Latino, April 

2018, available at <http://eltiempolatino.com/documents/2018/apr/08/cooperacion-venezolana-ennicaragua-2008-2017/>.

84Christine Armario, “Ex-Rebel Leader’s Arrest Puts Colombian Peace Process on Edge,” 

U.S. News and World Report Web site, April 10, 2018, available at <www.usnews.com/news/world/

articles/2018-04-10/colombia-jails-ex-rebel-on-us-drug-warrant-in-blow-to-peace>.

85 Parker Assman, “Colombia Asset Seizures Raise Doubts About FARC Peace Deal Compliance,” InSight Crime, February 20, 2018, available at <www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/colombiaasset-seizures-raise-doubts-farc-peace-deal-compliance/>.

86 The chain was initially taken over by the FARC when the original storeowner used it as a 

ransom payment when he was kidnapped. See Néstor Gómez, “El próspero negocio de las cadenas de 

supermercados de las Farc,” Portafolio (Bogota), February 21, 2018, available at <www.portafolio.

co/negocios/empresas/el-prospero-negocio-de-las-cadenas-de-supermercados-relacionadas-con-lasfarc-514497>.

87 “La táctica con la que las Farc buscará llegar al poder, según Rodrigo Londoño,” El Espectador (Bogota), January 2, 2018, available at <www.elespectador.com/elecciones-2018/noticias/politica/la-tactica-con-la-que-la-farc-buscara-llegar-al-poder-segun-rodrigo-londono-articulo-731394>.

88 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia, 

United Nations Security Council, S/2017/1117, December 27, 2017, available at <https://colombia.

unmissions.org/sites/default/files/en_-_n1745936.pdf>.

89 Douglas Farah, interview with Colombian military intelligence official, Bogotá, Colombia, 

June 2017.

90 Ibid.
46 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 28

About the Authors

Doulas Farah is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for 

National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University. He is also the President of IBI 

Consultants, a national security consulting firm. Prior to these positions, Mr. Farah worked as 

a foreign correspondent and investigative reporter to the Washington Post for more than 20 

years, covering security in Latin America and West Africa. He is an expert on national security, 

transnational crime, terrorism, terror finance, and nonstate armed actors. Mr. Farah has given 

testimony before House and Senate committees, sat as an expert witness in security conferences 

across the hemisphere, and published two books on these topics. He holds a Bachelor of Arts 

and Bachelor of Science from the University of Kansas.

Kathryn Babineau is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. Prior to doctoral studies, she served as the Research Coordinator at IBI Consultants and the Center for Strategic 

Research. Prior to these positions, she worked as an Assistant Researcher on the Corporations 

and Human Rights Database Project at the University of Oxford. Ms. Babineau’s work focuses 

on corporate accountability, human rights, and the mining industry in Latin America. She has 

presented her research in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Ms. Babineau holds a 

Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the University of Virginia and Master of Philosophy 

from the University of Oxford.

IBI Consultants, LLC, is a national security consulting firm. Researchers in the firm offer a 

broad range of expertise and access across Latin America on issues of national security, transnational crime, terrorism, terror finance, and nonstate armed actors. IBI Consultants works with a 

wide range of clients from U.S. Government entities to private foundations and provides analysis, information, scenario development, and access to a broad range of on-the-ground experts.


Center for Strategic Research Senior Fellows

DR. R. KIM CRAGIN

Senior Research Fellow

DR. G. ALEXANDER CROWTHER

Senior Research Fellow

DR. T.X. HAMMES

Distinguished Research Fellow

DR. FRANK G. HOFFMAN

Distinguished Research Fellow

COL ROBERT M. KLEIN, USA

Senior Military Fellow

DR. CHRISTOPHER J. LAMB

Distinguished Research Fellow

COL ABIGAIL LINNINGTON, USA, PH.D.

Senior Military Fellow

MR. BRYCE S. LOIDOLT

Research Fellow

DR. THOMAS F. LYNCH III

Director

DR. JAMES J. PRZYSTUP

Senior Research Fellow

COL JOSE E. SUMANGIL, USAF

Senior Military Fellow

BRIGADIER GENERAL PETER B. ZWACK, 

USA (RET.)

Senior Research Fellow

For a complete list of INSS researchers and staff, please visit inss.ndu.edu.