Drug Trafficking Organizations Enriched by Prohibition Muscle Into New Territory: Central America

Drug trafficking organizations have muscled their way into Central America, opening a new chapter in the drug prohibition war that almost certainly will exact further cost on U.S. taxpayers as American authorities confront these organizations on a new frontier. The extent of the infiltration is breathtaking. Drug trafficking organizations now control large parts of the countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America. They've bought off politicians and police, moved cocaine processing laboratories up from the Andes, and are obtaining rockets and other heavy armament that make them more than a match for Central America's weak militaries.