Is Venezuela no longer a major drug transit point?
What does the US win from Alex Saab’s cooperation—and what does Venezuela lose?
How do criminal groups prey on the people defending Latin America’s land and resources?
Which is the latest country to sign on to Trump’s Shield of the Americas?
This week’s top three organized crime stories in On the Radar.
1: White House Removes Venezuela from Drug List, May Also Drop Colombia
The White House removed Venezuela from its list of major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries for fiscal year 2027. US President Donald Trump said that given the “positive steps taken under interim President Delcy Rodríguez,” his administration determined “Venezuela should no longer be designated as having failed demonstrably to fulfill its drug control commitments.”
The decision is a reward for the government of Rodríguez, but InSight Crime’s on-the-ground investigations have found that a large share of the cocaine produced in South America moves through Venezuela, where transport networks have long taken advantage of the country’s long, porous border with Colombia and extensive coastline. Cocaine shipments are then moved through Caribbean nations like Trinidad and Tobago before reaching consumers in the United States and Europe.
Trump also said that “Colombia is poised to resume its place as our foremost security partner in the hemisphere” with the arrival of Aberlardo de la Espriella as president.
2: Maduro’s Frontman Pleads Guilty in Miami
Alex Saab, the Colombian-born businessman, the alleged financial frontman of former Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to launder money in a Miami court on Tuesday. He admitted to organizing bribes to Venezuelan officials so companies he secretly controlled could win contracts under the state-funded food and medicine program, and agreed to forfeit $195 million and cooperate with continuing federal investigations. Saab was deported to the United States in May by interim President Delcy Rodríguez, having been pardoned by the Biden administration and returned to Caracas less than three years earlier.
AP reported that US officials could seek Saab’s testimony against Maduro, who was arrested in a US military operation in Caracas on January 3 and is awaiting trial in New York on narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking, and weapons charges. Our special series on Maduro’s arrest covers how criminal power is shifting in Venezuela post-Maduro, Rodríguez’s government has delivered purges, mining raids, and Saab’s deportation, as well as conducted joint operations with the US against the Claritas Sindicato and Tren de Aragua founder Héctor Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero,” who was killed in a US strike in June. But, the country’s deeply embedded hybrid criminal architecture remains mostly intact.
3: Organized Crime Is the Leading Suspect in Killings of Land Defenders
Organized crime or contract killers were suspected in more than a third of all cases of the killing of land and environmental defenders worldwide, making criminal actors the most frequently implicated perpetrators. At least 105 defenders—85 percent of the global total—were killed in Latin America in 2025, according to Global Witness, and Colombia was the deadliest country in the region.
Criminal groups prey on land defenders in two ways. The first is direct: our GameChangers 2025 analysis of environmental crime in the Amazon traced how armed groups have moved into unauthorized gold mining, logging, and land grabbing, and how anyone documenting or protesting that expansion becomes a target. The second is slower and harder to count: our investigation Corruption Kills showed how extractive projects in Honduras captured the permitting, prosecutorial, and judicial machinery that was supposed to protect communities so that killings go uninvestigated and threats continue.
4: The Shield of the Americas Grows
Peru is the latest country in the region to sign up for the Shield of the Americas regional security coalition, President Keiko Fujimori announced in Lima at the end of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s tour of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Days later, Chilean President José Antonio Kast told Radio Agricultura that his country would remain an observer for now. Meanwhile, soldiers from Peru, the United States, Argentina, and Chile spent the week training together near Tarapoto in the Peruvian Amazon under Southern Vanguard 2026, an exercise run by US Army South.
The Shield of the Americas coalition keeps adding members, but as InSight Crime’s co-director Jeremy McDermott and managing editor Deborah Bonello argue in this InSight Take, months after its founding it still has no approved operational plan, no defined targets beyond drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism,” and no clear obligations for the governments signing up.
Facts Only
* The White House removed Venezuela from its list of major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries for fiscal year 2027.
* US President Donald Trump stated that Venezuela should no longer be designated as having failed demonstrably to fulfill its drug control commitments.
* Cocaine production in South America moves through Venezuela, utilizing transport networks across its borders with Colombia and extensive coastline.
* Cocaine shipments are moved through Caribbean nations like Trinidad and Tobago before reaching consumers in the United States and Europe.
* Alex Saab pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money in a Miami court.
* Saab admitted to organizing bribes to Venezuelan officials for contracts under the state-funded food and medicine program.
* Saab agreed to forfeit $195 million and cooperate with federal investigations.
* The government of Rodríguez has delivered purges, mining raids, and Saab was deported to the United States in May.
* Organized crime or contract killers are suspected in more than a third of all killings of land and environmental defenders worldwide.
* At least 105 land defenders were killed in Latin America in 2025, with Colombia being the deadliest country in the region.
* Peru signed up for the Shield of the Americas regional security coalition.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative presented links shifts in international drug policy and internal Venezuelan legal proceedings to the movement of illicit goods and the protection of territorial rights by organized crime. The decision to remove Venezuela from drug lists reflects an external determination about drug control commitments, yet the underlying infrastructure for transit remains implicated; cocaine flows through the region regardless of designation status. The plea agreement involving Alex Saab demonstrates a localized acknowledgment of financial criminality tied to state structures, suggesting that even in formal legal settings, illicit networks possess mechanisms for operation and cooperation with authorities.
The persistent linkage between organized crime and attacks on land defenders reveals a fundamental conflict where resource extraction and territorial defense are framed as matters of criminal control rather than public security. This pattern suggests that the control exerted by criminal entities is not merely about immediate violence but about capturing the formal apparatus—permitting, prosecutorial, and judicial machinery—to ensure impunity for exploitation. The growth of regional security pacts like the Shield of the Americas, while framed as a mechanism for collective defense against "narco-terrorism," raises questions about whether these frameworks address the root causes of resource conflicts or merely manage the symptoms of cross-border criminality. The system appears designed to manage flows and control narratives rather than fundamentally alter the relationship between state authority, territorial ownership, and criminal enterprise.
What assumptions are embedded in prioritizing transit statistics over systemic accountability for land rights? If the focus remains on removing a country from drug lists while organized crime continues to operate through corrupted local judicial systems, where does true sovereignty lie? How do international security frameworks effectively counteract the localized architecture of impunity that criminal groups utilize?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like investigative journalism that synthesizes complex geopolitical and criminal reporting, relying on specific, sourced details rather than purely generative patterns.