Bolivia has elected a new president who will immediately face an acute economic crisis that could limit the government's ability to fight organized crime and push more people to engage in criminal activity.
Rodrigo Paz of the center-right Christian Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano – PDC) won 54% of the vote, defeating his rival Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in a runoff election on October 19. Paz pledged to strengthen customs control, end illegal mining and fight corruption. His vice presidential pick, Edman Lara, is a charismatic former police captain, popular for exposing corruption allegations on social media and widely credited with giving Paz a decisive electoral boost.
However, organized crime and security took a back seat to economic concerns during the campaign. The country is plunged into a serious crisis characterized by serious shortages of food and fuel. Inflation has reached 23% this year and falling exports have hit public finances, threatened the value of the currency and pushed the country to the brink of debt default.
This could push more Bolivians into informal and illegal economies and put pressure on the government's ability to fight crime at a time when it faces several pressing criminal challenges.
Booming cocaine trade attracts transnational organized crime groups
In recent years, there has been an increase in cocaine passing through Bolivia, and the country is also a growing producer of cocaine. Security forces discovered 1,501 pharmaceutical laboratories in 2024, an increase of 74% compared to 2023. And coca cultivation continued to expand well beyond the country's legal limit of 22,000 hectares, reaching 31,000 hectares in 2023, according to to the latest statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Bolivia shares borders with five South American countries, positioning at the heart of regional drug trafficking routes. While the country lack With local trafficking organizations on a large scale, there is growing evidence that foreign groups are moving in to fill the void.
The eastern department of Santa Cruz has become a frequent destination Flash point for violence linked to Brazilian drug gangs, including the First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho – resume). A wave of drug-related homicides in the area has killed 11 people in the past three months, according to local police.
The department is close to that of Bolivia drug producer border areas and the border with Brazil, which gives it strategic importance on drug trafficking routes. Rapid economic growth in the region's capital, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, has fostered organized crime, according to Gabriela Reyes Rodas, a Bolivian organized crime expert.
“Santa Cruz has experienced such economic growth that the means of laundering money – concerts, luxury cars – have become invisible,” she told InSight Crime, adding that traffickers “blend in with the population.”
Several high-level traffickers have felt comfortable enough to set up shop in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Brazil's most wanted trafficker, Sérgio Luiz de Freitas Filho, lived openly in a gated suburb for more than a decade before being exposed by the Brazilian media G1 in September. Uruguayan trafficker Sebastián Marset also lived in the city and even bought a local football team before fleeing before a police raid. The two traffickers remain on the run.
Paz acknowledged that there had been an increase in the number of drugs intercepted while transiting the country and that these seizures represented only a “fraction” of actual drug flows. His policy plan hinted at increased cooperation between Bolivia and unnamed international partners and increased investment in technology, although he did not develop a plan to combat drug trafficking networks in the country.
Illegal mining boom
Surge gold prices have fueled illegal mining in Bolivia, exacerbating environmental damage and creating new opportunities for organized crime groups.
Bolivia's gold deposits are mined almost exclusively by small-scale cooperatives that wield significant political power and are subject to minimal oversight, according to a recent InSight Crime study. investigation. They also frequently exceed the limits of their mining concessions, launder illicit gold and around 85% of them operate without environmental licenses.
Cooperatives are also voracious consumers of mercury, a toxic metal used to separate gold from its ore. Between 2013 and 2023, the official value of Bolivia's mercury imports increased tenfold to $4.17 million, making the country the largest importer in Latin America. according to to monitor global trade, the Economic Complexity Observatory
Organized crime has infiltrated deep into the mercury supply chain. A metal smuggling network from Mexico to Bolivia was allegedly supplied by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), according to a report of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit organization that investigates environmental crimes. In July, Peruvian authorities intercepted a record illegal shipment of 4 tons of mercury in transit from Mexico to Bolivia.
Paz's campaign manifest said illegal mining must be eradicated, but he did not explain how his administration would tackle the complex criminal networks embedded in the sector.
Smuggling
Bolivia's ongoing economic crisis is also creating new space for growth for the country's already thriving smuggling economy.
Goods smuggled into and out of Bolivia were worth up to $3.5 billion in 2022, or nearly 8% of the country's economic output, and smuggling is growing faster than the country's legal economy. according to at the National Chamber of Industries (Cámara Nacional de Industrias – CNI). Small groups of smugglers have stepped up, paid the military and border authorities, and even requisitioned bus companies to transport larger quantities of goods.
The country's porous borders allow a wide range of goods to move in and out, from onions to precious metals. By avoiding taxes and import restrictions, smugglers pocket easy profits. Economic hardship provides these groups with labor to move and sell contraband, as well as large markets for discounted black market goods.
SEE ALSO: Lake Titicaca: a smugglers’ paradise in Bolivia and Peru
During the campaign, Paz briefly caused panic in neighboring countries by being open to legalizing “chutos,” unlicensed vehicles, which are frequently stolen in Chile and then smuggled across the border. However, Reyes, the organized crime expert, said fears about the legalization of chutos in the country were exaggerated.
Legalization could provide police with a “practical way to identify cars that have been stolen and return them through cross-checking databases at the time of legalization,” Reyes said.
But perhaps the most serious risk is that the continued failure to manage the flow of goods in and out of the country's borders could further embolden the country's criminal clans, who use the same smuggling routes to transport drugs, chemical precursors and people.
Featured image: Rodrigo Paz watching the election results in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, on Sunday. Credit: Claudia Morales/Reuters
