By: Staff Writer
July 1, 2025
The World Bank in their Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review said that the economic woes in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region are being compounded by the scourge of organized crime and that crime feeds off of the absence of opportunities for citizens.
The report said: “The traditional development challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are increasingly compounded by the expansion of organized crime in the region.
“The regions’ news outlets document not only rising homicide rates but killings ordered from within prisons, sometimes involving civilians; politicians and government officials under threat; candidates for office assassinated, altering elections; murders involving people with alias names and kilograms of lost cocaine; businesses that must pay extortion fees to operate; and parts of the territory—neighborhoods, cities, and rural municipalities—under criminal control.”
In addition to producing and consuming large quantities of cocaine, Latin American criminal groups play a central role in trafficking the drug to the United States and the European Union. These networks are tightly linked to criminal organizations around the world and have a significant impact on the region’s economy, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, or GI-TOC.
Although the region makes up just 9% of the world’s population, it accounts for about one-third of global homicides, with rates up to eight times higher than the global average. Twelve Latin American countries are among the 50 most affected by organized crime, according to GI-TOC.
The report also said: “The grip of organized crime has gotten tighter not only in the countries where drug trafficking and criminal groups, in one form or another, have been present for a while, such as Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico, but also in new countries; each year, another country seems to be affected”
The report continued: “While it is a problem present in many countries and regions around the world, and eradicating it will require international collaboration and coordinated solutions beyond national borders, its particular grip on the region demands urgent action. In LAC, organized crime tends to be more violent than in other places.
“It also flourishes locally through territorial control, coercion, and extortion; the capture of state institutions; and criminal governance—sometimes with rules that limit individual freedoms, including the right to move, work, and vote freely.
“The impediments it poses to the region’s development are myriad: uncertainty about property rights reduces and distorts investment; extortion and insecurity raise business transaction costs and reduce competitiveness; unproductive public security expenses divert resources that could otherwise go into health, education, and infrastructure, improving people’s lives; victims of violence experience reductions in their capacity to accumulate human capital; communities living under organized crime rule see their basic freedoms compromised; and control of state institutions weakens the quality of government.”