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Report No. 1 - 2022 - Illegal Drugs
Micro-trafficking Gans
Report No. 1 - 2022 - Micro-trafficking Gangs
Unidad de Investigación Periodística
Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano
City:
Bogotá
Country:
Colombia
Juliana Castellanos Diaz
Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano
City:
Bogotá
Country:
Colombia
Mauricio Barrantes Chavarro
Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano
City:
Bogotá
Country:
Colombia
Original Article (Report)
RFJ, No. 12, 2022, pp. 204 - 216, ISSN 2588-0837
TO:
Editorial Board
ABOUT:
Illegal Drugs Micro-trafficking Gans - Criminal
strongholds of a business that operates with children and
adolescents
DATE
: June 21
st
, 2021
ABSTRACT:
This transdisciplinary legal report represents
the problem of micro-trafficking (
Giommoni et al.
, 2021),
its relationship with criminal gangs (Densley et al., 2020),
DOI 10.26807/rfj.vi.457
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and its implications (taking Colombia as a case study) in a
context where the weakness of the institutional framework and
potential violations of the rights of children and adolescents
prevail. Furthermore, a descriptive and communicational
approach is adopted through which the information is presented
in a versatile way, without resorting to complex conceptual
frameworks typical of legal dogmatics and emphasizing the
main points to be settled in future discussions on how, why,
and for what purpose to formulate public policies and practical
legal management tools to address this and other underlying
social problems.
KEYWORDS:
micro-trafficking, criminal law, public policies,
social control, media reports.
RESUMEN:
En este informe jurídico transdiciplinario se
comparte una representación del problema del microtráfico, su
relación con las bandas criminales y sus implicancias (tomando
como caso de estudio a Colombia) frente a un contexto donde
prevalece la debilidad del marco institucional y potenciales
vulneraciones de derechos de niños, niñas y adolescentes. En
ese sentido, se adopta un enfoque descriptivo y comunicacional
a través del cual la información es presentada de forma versátil,
sin recurrir a marcos conceptuales complejos propios de la
dogmática jurídica y haciendo énfasis en los principales puntos
a dirimir en futuras discusiones sobre cómo, por qué y para qué
formular políticas públicas y herramientas de gestión jurídica
efectivas para afrontar esta y otras problemáticas sociales
subyacentes.
PALABRAS CLAVES:
microtráfico, derecho penal, políticas
públicas, control social, bandas criminales.
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1. BACKGROUND
This transdisciplinary report presents a description of
the problem of micro-trafficking and its implications, taking the
city of Colombia as a case study. It is a cross-cutting phenomenon
in the country. According to data from the Attorney General’s
Office, between 2015 and November 2021, 441 structures
dedicated to micro-trafficking were dismantled, of which 254
involved minors. The most affected departments are Antioquia,
Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Quindío, and Santander.
In this regard, it should be noted that, despite being
a problem that affects the whole of Colombia, complaints do
not usually come from the civilian population but through
early warnings from the Ombudsman’s Office, as stated by the
Attorney General’s Office.
For Universidad del Valle professor Leonardo Raffo
López (2021), an expert in criminal economies, understanding
the silence of the citizenry involves recognizing that in those
areas where criminal gangs partially or dominate - parks,
streets, neighborhoods, blocks - they not only control the illegal
market but also security and social relations, through groups
prepared to defend gang members, which involves intimidating
the population and negotiating with local control agents.
For López (2021), the power that gangs consolidate in
urban scenarios produces fear and, paradoxically, admiration
among minors who see in these criminal groups the possibility
of economic advancement, under the imaginary of success,
recognition, and easy money. In addition, it can be argued that
they assume roles related to the collection of information and
the transport of small quantities of illegal substances, as a way
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of forging a criminal career within these groups, as explained
by the Attorney General’s Office (2021).
Daniela Suárez (2021), an expert in criminal dynamics
and current executive director of Fundación Ideas Disruptivas,
reports that during a research process she interviewed 10
jíbaros, adults between the ages of 21 and 35, in a prison. One
of them told her that he had entered the business at the age of
11 as a bell ringer: he would stand on a corner and tell the other
members of the gang if any authorities were coming. His rise in
the organization allowed him to dominate an entire sector for
the sale of heroin.
In addition to forging heirs of criminal structures and
showing the world of drugs as a thriving business, the use of
minors in micro-trafficking is part of a strategy to acquire cheap
labor and have people who face fewer legal implications in case
they are apprehended, explains Claudia Sanchez (2021), a social
worker and technical director of World Vision International.
2. FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS AND CORRUPTION
Suarez (2021) assures that the most difficult thing in
the fight against drugs is to fight corruption. This is so because
the issue is that the authorities carry out illegal operations
to reach the goals they are asked to achieve. We have heard
reports of police officers who say that they were asked to meet
goals (quotas of detainees) and that they asked for this number
or else they would be punished and not given permission to
go see their families. They even paid 20,000 Colombian pesos
to a street inhabitant and gave them more than 20 grams of
marijuana and they ended up in jail for one night to meet the
goal. False operations and results with which the image of
effective institutions that control crime is built according to the
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denunciations that have been made in a journalistic way and
that this report collects.
1
Through the documentary review and in line with
the opinion of Suarez (2021), it has been identified that in
Colombia there are officials who operate in favor of the State
but who also do so benefiting large drug trafficking groups or
micro-trafficking gangs. Moreover, the complaints collected
claim that these officials pass information to have control on
one side and continue to operate with impunity, and upwards
so that there is an illusion of legal operation that does not exist.
This perverse and historical modus operandi has allowed,
among other factors, the persistence and almost uncontrolled
growth of micro-trafficking structures.
3. ON APPREHENDED MINORS
Figures delivered by the National Police (2021)
to the de Investigación Periodística of the Politécnico
Grancolombiano reveal that between 2015 and 2021, 29,756
minors were apprehended in the country for trafficking,
manufacturing, and carrying drugs. The last of the three crimes
are the most common cause due to its close relationship with
commercialization in small quantities, the visible link in the
complex ecosystem of micro-trafficking. For Raffo (2021),
this is the tip of the iceberg, because behind this distribution
surface there are very complex hierarchical structures and,
therefore, difficult to identify.
1
The ideas presented here are shared with a reflective purpose and adapted
from a journalistic investigation carried out between 2021 and 2022 by
the Unidad de Investigación Periodística of the Institución Universitaria
Politécnico Grancolombiano:
https://bandasmicrotrafico.poligran.edu.
co/texto.html
. In addition, it is proposed as an academic contribution for
discussion and research. Without political and/or ideological alignment, it
aims to make visible a social problem, that is, to serve as a reflective input for
potential actions in terms of public policies and legal management in the face
of real scenarios such as micro trafficking and criminal gangs in Colombia.
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In addition, testimonies have been collected from
young people and older people who entered the business when
they were under 18 years old, in which they state that they do
not usually know the top leader of the organization and that
their contract is with the person who provides them with
merchandise or to whom they account for the money. Thus,
in the event of being apprehended or subjected to criminal
proceedings for adolescents, there is very little information
they can provide.
When minors are apprehended in Colombia, the
Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) assures that in
2021 the restoration of rights will be the priority. But if they
are older than 14 and younger than 18, they enter the System of
Criminal Responsibility for Adolescents (SRPA), which seeks
a pedagogical, specific, and differentiated criminal process
concerning the adult system, guaranteeing restorative justice,
truth, and reparation of the damage done by the adolescent.
This may include, in some cases, deprivation of liberty
in Specialized Care Centers. According to the ICBF, between
January 2015 and November 2021, 179 adolescents and young
people were admitted to these Centers for cases linked to the
trafficking, manufacture, and commercialization of narcotics.
4. ON MIGRANTS TARGETED BY MICRO-TRAFFICKING
GANGS
The other issue of concern is that it is not only national
minors who are involved in illegal structures dedicated to micro-
trafficking. The data analyzed on apprehensions also includes
Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, Peruvians, and Central Americans.
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From the list of countries, it is noteworthy that in the
last six years, 418 children and adolescents of Venezuelan
nationality have been apprehended, with significant annual
increases from 2 cases in 2015 to 132 in 2021. In the period
under study, there is only a decrease between 2019 and 2020,
from 132 to 100 apprehensions, respectively.
There is little information on the matter. However,
the interest of drug trafficking groups is to identify vulnerable
populations. For Claudia Sanchez (2021), technical director of
World Vision, the migration of Venezuelan people in extreme
poverty is exploited because it represents cheap labor. In this
context, migrants find in criminal dynamics an opportunity,
but there are also cases in which they act under threats and
other forms of violence.
Figure 1:
Nationality of apprehended minors 2015-2021
Source:
Policia Nacional (2021, n. p.)
Nationality of apprehended
minors 2015-2021
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Juan Manuel Núñez (2021), the advisor to the
Directorate of Drug Policy and Related Activities of the Ministry
of Justice, assures that the more isolated the migrant population
is left from institutional services or the Colombian community,
the more at the mercy of criminals who do act quickly and offer
protection and employment.
However, it goes beyond the migrant and returnee
population. Sanchez (2021) draws attention at this point to the
border areas of Colombia as spaces lacking state presence and,
therefore, with criminal structures. This expert (2021) explains
that:
One example is Buenaventura (Valle del Cauca). It is a
port, and there are many interests and the control that
the different groups have, and the danger they represent
for many children and adolescents, mainly because they
are on one side or the other, and if they are not, they go
and kill them, and that is a reality. (n. p.)
The murder of minors by gangs dedicated to micro-
trafficking is a topic that is rarely talked about in the country.
Only in 2018, after a demonstration in the locality of Ciudad
Bolivar in Bogota for the murder of 22 young people in strange
and diverse circumstances, did the media deal with the issue
for a few days. Among the articles published was one in the
newspaper El Tiempo, in which neighborhood leader Luceris
Segura said that micro-trafficking gangs had a lot to do with the
events. But the issue did not gain relevance in the political and
media agendas.
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5. INSTITUTIONAL WEAKNESS AND PUBLIC POLICIES
Although the phenomenon has been growing in all
Colombian cities for years, it was only in 2015 that the National
Narcotics Council began to design and implement research to
understand the criminal network from which micro-trafficking
is built
Núñez (2021). Also,
Núñez (2021), advisor to the
Directorate of Drug Policy and Related Activities of the Ministry
of Justice has stated that:
From there we realized that we had to intervene with
security issues, block criminal organizations, and,
on the other hand, recover territories and disengage
the population from crime through social policy. We
evolved that and in 2018 we created a guide so that in
the territories they can formulate projects that address
micro-trafficking. (n. p.)
Both the governments of Juan Manuel Santos and Iván
Duque have included these lines of action in their development
plans, which can be summarized, according to Núñez (2021),
as an intervention in areas of fear and micro-trafficking from a
security and social inclusion perspective.
Likewise, the Presidential Council for Human Rights
and International Affairs, which serves as the technical
secretariat of the Intersectoral Commission for the Prevention
of Recruitment, Use and Sexual Violence of Children
and Adolescents by Armed Groups Outside the Law and
Organized Criminal Groups (CIPRUNNA), has taken these
recommendations to integrate them into its policies (2021):
“The technical strengthening of the governors’ and mayors’
offices is being promoted for the implementation of routes
that allow the identification of risks and the development of
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institutional offerings for the activation of ways to prevent the
recruitment and use of minors.”
6. RECOMMENDATIONS AND FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Súmate por Mí
and
Ruta Futuro
are two of the projects
being developed in the country to try to prevent and stop the
recruitment, use, and instrumentalization of minors by criminal
structures linked to drug trafficking. In practice, the action
tools derived from these guidelines are integrated into the
security and citizen coexistence policies of each department
or municipality so that, according to their conditions, they
can be applied. But development is not optimal due to the lack
of technological, human, financial, and academic capacity.
According to Núñez (2021):
All policies must include a line that has to do with
strengthening capacities in all aspects because if I tell
them what to do and how to do it, but I don’t give them
the means to do it, it’s serious. (n. p.)
In other words, the State has clear and, from the
discourse, possibly effective policies, but there are no resources
to implement them efficiently. Meanwhile, the problem
continues to expand in streets, schools, parks, street corners,
city squares, even in social networks; and, in rural areas where
the phenomenon is beginning to spread. In these scenarios,
criminal groups offer minors gifts, motorcycles, money,
weapons, and power; a solution to the most vulnerable lives,
with few expectations for the present and future, and the State
is directly responsible for this.
For stopping the growth of gangs is also to reduce the
possibility that many children, adolescents, and young people
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build their life projects from criminal economies. Therefore, it
is urg
ent the attention and efforts that the national and local
governments put on this phenomenon that has been hidden, in
the back room of discussions and policies on drug use.
Therefore, the issue that worries families and
educational institutions is addiction, which is not a minor issue,
but placing the prevention of joining micro-trafficking gangs at
the center of the discussion can also save lives.
REFERENCES
Attorney General’s Office (2021). Right of Petition
20212510001461.
Colombian Institute of Family Welfare - ICBF (2021). Right of
Petition 202120200000238211.
Colombian National Police (2021).
Right of Petition
GS-2021-
030932.
Densley, J., Deuchar, R. and Harding, S. (2020). An Introduction
to Gangs and Serious Youth Violence in the United
Kingdom.
Youth Justice
, 20 (1-2), pp. 3-10.
https://
doi.org/10.1177/1473225420902848
El Tiempo (2021). Interview to Luceris Segura.
El Tiempo.
Giommoni, L., Berlusconi, G. and Aziani, A. (2021).
Interdicting
International Drug Trafficking: A Network Approach
for Coordinated and Targeted Interventions.
European
Journal on Criminal Policy and Research
.
https://doi.
org/10.1007/s10610-020-09473-0
Castellanos, J.; Barrantes M.
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Revista Facultad de Jurisprudencia RFJ No.12 Diciembre 2022
Intersectoral Commission for the Prevention of Recruitment
– CIPRUNNA. (2021).
Use and Sexual Violence of
Children and Adolescents by Armed Groups Outside the
Law and Organized Criminal Groups
. Right of Petition
W/N.
Nuñez, J. M. (2021).
Interview to Juan Manuel Nuñez
, Juan
Manuel Núñez in 2021, advisor to the Directorate of
Drug Policy and Related Activities of the Ministry of
Justice.
Policía Nacional. (2021). Nationality of apprehended minors
2015-2021.
Unidad de Investigación Periodística.
https://bandasmicrotrafico.poligran.edu.co/datos.
html
Raffo López, L. (2021).
Interview to Leonardo Raffo López
,
researcher and professor at Universidad del Valle.
Sanchez, C. (2021).
Interview to Claudia Patricia Sanchez Muñoz
,
Technical Director of World Vision Colombia.
Suárez, D. (2021).
Interview to Daniela Suarez
, executive director
of Fundación Ideas Disruptivas.
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Revista Facultad de Jurisprudencia RFJ No.12 Diciembre 2022
Received:
01-06-2021
Approved:
06-07-2022
Unidad de Investigación Periodística:
Institución Universitaria
Politécnico Grancolombiano
City:
Bogotá
Country:
Colombia
Email:
unidaddeinvestigaciónperiodística@gmail.com
Autor
Institucional
Coordinadores
Juliana Castellanos Diaz:
Unidad de Investigación Periodística
de la Institución Universitaria Politécnico Grancolombiano
City:
Bogotá
Country:
Colombia
Email:
unidaddeinvestigaciónperiodística@gmail.com
ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0435-0844
Mauricio Barrantes Chavarro:
Unidad de Investigación
Periodística de la Institución Universitaria Politécnico
Grancolombiano
City:
Bogotá
Country:
Colombia
Email:
unidaddeinvestigaciónperiodística@gmail.com
ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7426-8649