Surging cocaine violence has Uruguay clamoring for DEA help
Uruguay’s main port received two cargo scanners sixteen years ago to detect drugs and other suspicious loads. Unfortunately, during delivery one of them fell into the sea.
Since then, cocaine shipments to Europe have surged through the port of Montevideo, which handled a record 1.1 million containers last year, fueling a rise in gang violence and undermining Uruguay’s reputation as a beacon of stability in turbulent South America.
Uruguay, a small, a uent nation sandwiched between Brazil and Argentina, is desperate for help.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shuttered its Montevideo o'ce in 2019 after years of strained ties with local law enforcement, four former DEA o'cials said. The details of the DEA’S exit are previously unreported.
Uruguay’s current centerright government, which took o'ce the following year, has repeatedly asked the DEA to return but U.S. o'cials say there are no imminent plans to do so.
Three former DEA o'cials told Reuters that – with Washington focused on fentanyl /ooding its borders from Mexico and little of the cocaine that transits through Uruguay heading to the United States – there’s scant appetite for seeking congressional approval to re-open a Montevideo o'ce.
“Everything’s fentanyl now,” said former DEA o'cial Larry Reichner, who oversaw Uruguay as the DEA’S assistant regional director for southern South America from 2015-2019. “They couldn’t give a rat’s ass about ocaine.”
The DEA declined to comment.
European nations, which receive the bulk of the cocaine passing through Uruguay, also have a limited counter-narcotics presence here. Spain is the only European country with a permanent police attache in Montevideo.
Reuters spoke with over two dozen current and former U.S., European and Uruguayan cops, as well as local o'cials, lawmakers and foreign diplomats. They said Uruguay is in a precarious position, Dghting a lonely battle against cocaine smuggling gangs that have expanded into every corner of Latin America over the last decade, turning once-tranquil nations like Ecuador into cartel badlands.
Uruguay, home to 3.4 million people, suffered a record 426 murders in 2018. Violence has remained high ever since with grisly turf battles between small drug-dealing clans shocking a country largely unaccustomed to gang violence.
With 382 people killed last year, President Luis Lacalle Pou is struggling to defend his government’s security record ahead of a general election in October, while some far-right lawmakers are calling for troops on the streets.
“We have a problem,” said Mario Layera, Uruguay’s police chief from 2016-20, who led the force when the DEA left. “Cocaine is a problem.”
Nicolás Martinelli, Uruguay’s interior minister, told Reuters that Lacalle Pou’s government had repeatedly asked the DEA to return but has yet to get a positive response. He said he was pleased Argentina-based DEA agents are now visiting Montevideo twice a week, up from once every two weeks.
A DEA o'ce is no panacea. Several Latin American nations have a deadly drug problem despite a strong DEA presence. Still, Martinelli said his country is desperate for U.S. equipment and expertise; he lamented that Uruguay’s status as a highincome nation excludes it from U.S. counter-narcotics donations.
“Uruguay remains a valued DEA partner,” a DEA spokesperson said. “We continue to actively explore new opportunities to expand our efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations operating worldwide.”
DENIAL
Nelson Vargas, who ran the DEA’S Montevideo o'ce from 2013-2017, said “it was kind of cloak and dagger” when he arrived, with local cops wary of working with the DEA.
Politics played a part. Leftist governments ruled Uruguay from 2005-2020, and their negative view of U.S. policy towards Latin America – including support for the country’s 1973-85 dictatorship – hindered counternarcotics collaboration, Layera, Martinelli and U.S. sources said.