The Fentanyl Supply Chain

In How a New Drug Trafficking Landscape Fuels Violence in Latin America, the International Crisis Group (ICG) maps the supply chains transporting cocaine and fentanyl from Latin America to consumers in Europe and North America. The map reveals how decades of failed prohibitionist policies, shifting demand, and increasingly fragmented criminal networks have transformed drug trafficking into a hyper-violent, adaptable industry. An industry which is wreaking havoc on communities throughout Latin America.

The ICG’s findings are presented in an interactive Mapbox storymap, allowing readers to trace these drugs’ journeys - from raw material extraction and production to final street distribution. This sprawling system relies on a transnational network of criminal groups operating across continents.

Each drug’s production and distribution involve numerous gangs, creating a hierarchy where profits flow upward to cartels, financiers, and international traffickers. Meanwhile, violence festers at the grassroots level as gangs fight for territorial control, devastating communities across Latin America.

Despite decades of militarized crackdowns, criminal groups have only multiplied. U.S. pressure for heavy-handed responses has often backfired - fragmenting cartels into more violent networks, deepening institutional corruption, and displacing trafficking routes into previously unaffected regions like Ecuador and Costa Rica.