Organized Crime In El Salvador: Its Homegrown and Transnational Dimensions
weapons, personnel, and goods. The results are devastating and wideranging in the Massachusetts-sized country, and are a key part of the crisis of governance and rule of law crippling the Central American region and Mexico. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Funes acknowledged drug trafficking organizations had infiltrated the police and judiciary and increased in power and range of operations. Asked who controls the flow of illicit drugs in El Salvador, Funes responded, “Everybody. There are Salvadoran cartels in connection with Colombian cartels. Guatemalan cartels are there. And recently we have found evidence of the presence of Los Zetas (a particularly violent Mexican organization).”3 The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates that between 545 and 707 metric tons of cocaine are shipped to the United States each year from Colombia and other producing nations, and of that amount, 90 percent of the product (500 to 630 metric tons) enters through the Central America-Mexico route. More specifically, some 69 percent (376 to 488 metric tons) pass through the Eastern Pacific vector, meaning the Pacific coasts of Colombia and Ecuador, through Central America and on to Mexico, of which El Salvador is an integral part.4 According to the State Department’s annual report, in 2009 El Salvador seized less than 4 metric tons of cocaine, or roughly, at best, 1 percent of the cocaine passing through.5 El Salvador also is an important money-laundering center. The State Department annual report lists El Salvador as a “country of concern,” noting that
El Salvador has one of the largest and most developed banking systems in Central America.The growth of El Salvador’s financial sector, the increase in narcotics trafficking, the large volume of remittances through the formal financial sector and alternative remittance systems, and the use of the US dollar as legal tender make El Salvador vulnerable to money laundering.6 In one recent incident that demonstrates the amount of money moving through the country, in September 2010 police investigators found two plastic barrels full of $100 bills and Euro notes on a small farm outside | 105 |