Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks before the Constitutional Court magistrates, August 11, 2023. Photo: Presidency of Colombia.
The Colombian president spoke of the fentanyl consumption boom in the US and linked it to violence in Ecuador and the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio.
Colombian president Gustavo Petro explained this Saturday on his X account that: “The cocaine market collapsed in the US and was replaced by a worse one, that of fentanyl, which already kills 100,000 people a year.”
Petro explained the current state of the cocaine market and its structural transformation that has occurred due to the explosion of fentanyl consumption in the United States, which ended up increasing drug trafficking violence in Ecuador. The assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio can be attributed to this increase in violence due to drug trafficking.
He reported on his X account on Friday that: “The areas of coca plant cultivation and the location of laboratories sought to trace routes northward through the Pacific Ocean or to the Caribbean. The routes went through Central America, the Caribbean islands, and Mexico to the US.”
The president estimated that the largest coca-growing area is no longer the Pacific region of Nariño, Colombia. Currently, “it is a 10-kilometer strip along the Colombian-Ecuadorian border, on the Colombian side,” which runs in two directions: first from Brazil to Europe, passing through Africa, or from Ecuador and Peru to East Asia, Japan, and Australia.
Ha cambiado la estructura del mercado de la cocaína. Las áreas de cultivo de plantas de Coca y la localización de laboratorios buscaban trazar rutas hacia el norte por el oceano Pacífico o hacia el Caribe. Las rutas recorrían centroamérica, las islas del Caribe y México hacia…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) August 12, 2023
The Colombian president added that this is why Ecuador, a peaceful country, has surpassed Colombia in violence, and why Villavicencio’s murder shocked the whole of Ecuador, a country that for years has been facing an increase in crimes related to the emergence of international drug trafficking organizations.
(HispanTV)
Translation by Orinoco Tribune
OT/ECS/DD/BLA
