SOUTHCOM shifts focus as drug trade evolves - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

SOUTHCOM shifts focus as drug trade evolves

This year, U.S. Southern Command has seized 100 metric tons of cocaine, a large figure, but only half of what was captured last year, according to Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, who oversees SOUTHCOM.

“There is a change in the trafficking and we are trying to catch up,” Fraser said Thursday at a think tank in Washington.

In 2009, Joint Interagency Task Force-South interdicted 226 metric tons of cocaine, costing the cartels and traffickers $4.5 billion, Fraser told Congress in March.

He said the geographic shift in drug-trafficking routes is partly due to the success of Plan Colombia, the United States’ 10-year effort to fight the illegal drug trade in that country. Its success has bred problems in other regions, he said.

“Plan Colombia, as it was designed and as it has been supported, has been and is a success, but it’s not over yet,” Fraser said. “I would argue that we all need to work together to build a Plan Latin America to address this from a regional standpoint, recognizing that the traffickers will go to wherever they find the best opportunity to operate.”

Fraser showed a slide of the global cocaine-trafficking network, with red lines arcing up from South America to the United States or across the Atlantic Ocean to Western Africa, from where the drugs make their way into the European market. This year, Spain became the highest per capita consumer of cocaine, Fraser said.

There has been more activity lately in eastern South America, especially around the Orinoco River Delta, where ships loaded with drugs leave for western Africa.

“We’re trying to get our arms around exactly where the trafficking is coming out,” Fraser said.

In addition to the Orinoco, there is an uptick in transit from Argentina and Brazil.

“Those are growing problems,” Fraser said. “I’ve asked for a capacity to increase at least our over-the-horizon capability in the eastern part of the Caribbean.”

However, for now, SOUTHCOM is not increasing the number of forces focused on that area, because the bigger trafficking route remains in Central America.

SOUTHCOM, which has responsibility for 31 countries and 10 territories, has between 5,000 and 6,000 people on its staff, Fraser said. Most of them are focused on counterdrug operations in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific or detainee operations at Guantanamo Bay, he said.

Illicit trafficking remains SOUTHCOM’s primary concern.

The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates the illegal worldwide trafficking industry to be $394 billion per year, Fraser said. This includes the illegal transit of drugs, humans, weapons, bulk cash and even exotic animals, which Fraser said nets $82 billion a year.

In addition to a geographic shift, drug traffickers are also using new methods to move illegal items. Police in Ecuador recently found a 100-foot submarine hidden in the jungle near the Colombian border. According to reports, the sub was far more sophisticated than the semi-submersibles that have been used to smuggle cocaine in the past. In fact, SOUTHCOM has seen a decline in the use of semi-submersibles, Fraser said.

In response to a question about other countries’ activities in the region, Fraser said Russia and China are looking to Central and South America for trade opportunities, including helping some countries modernize their militaries. For example, Russia’s official arms export agency, Rosoboronexport, recently signed a contract to export eight helicopters to Peru.

“China I see primarily interested in economics and resources; they are providing some military capacity to some militaries there,” said Fraser. “I see this as the normal interaction of international commerce.”

Iran has increased its diplomatic presence in the region, opening its 12th embassy there this year, he said. It is not clear yet what, if any, impact Iran’s longstanding support of Hezbollah and Hamas will have on Latin America or the Caribbean, Fraser said.

“I do not see that connection right now,” he added.