Foreign Policy Central America Drug Trafficking and ACLED Data

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Overview

ACLED armed conflict database filtered by the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Information taken is between the dates of January 1st 2025 and June 12th 2025. The seizure of illicit drugs is sourced from the United Nation's Drugs Monitoring Platform. Specifically, data on heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine, powder cocaine and cannabis were downloaded. The dataset was filtered by the Americas and the dates from January 1st to January 31st of 2024 were incorporated. The data on the trafficking of illegal drugs was taken from an abundance of sources with InSight Crime being the most heavily used. Data applied to portray the trafficking routes ranges from 2016 to as recently as 2026. This app is intended to show the correlation between violence from the ACLED database to that of the drug trade across the Americas.

Content

  • Event identification and timing for each recorded incident, including the event date and time precision.
  • Event characterization covering disorder type, event type, sub-event type, and civilian targeting indicators.
  • Actor and interaction details describing the primary actor, associated actor, and interaction context.
  • Location information including country, region, administrative areas, place name, and geographic coordinates.
  • Impact and context such as reported fatalities, source information, notes, tags, and population context around the event location.
  • Seizure details such as the date of the incident, the substance involved, the quantity seized, location, and the measurement unit.
  • Operational context such as trafficking routes, physical seizure locations and mode of transportation.
  • Operational scale visualized by presenting the distance traveled and borders crossed that illegal drugs need to move through to be delivered.
  • Method of transportation demonstrated by showcasing how routes are traveled either through air, land or water.

Sources

Armed conflict data compiled from ACLED. The database used for the seizure of illicit substances by the authorities and information on them comes from the United Nation's Drugs Monitoring Platform. A large list of sources were used to help with the creation of the drug trafficking routes. Why Cocaine Keeps Flowing Through the Caribbean: A Visual Guide by InSight Crime, The World Economic Forum, Newsweek, United Nations World Drug Report 2025, Naval Intelligence Unit “Illicit Drug Trafficking by Waterway in the Americas”, Criminal Networks and Routes from the Caribbean to Europe by InSight Crime and The Resurgence of the Central American Cocaine Highway by InSight Crime all were broadly used across the entire project.

In addition to these general sources employed across the entire project, more information was gathered for specific countries. For Colombia, Los Pachenca Seek New Sanctuary for Drug Operations at Colombia’s Tip by InSight Crime was applied. For Peru two InSight articles were referenced which are Ketamine Trafficking Expands Across Latin America and Expanding Drug Trafficking on Peru’s Borders With Colombia and Brazil. The Global Organized Crime Index helped with Cuba and Barbados. Simple Flying, 2025 Nation Drug Threat Assessment, Cleaveland.com and Wikipedia supported in portraying the paths drugs travel within America. Haiti required a few sources in it's depiction which are Al Jazeera, Haiti's criminal markets by the UNODC and another UN source about cocaine seizures in Haitian waters.

Publication Date

11-2026

Comments

For additional information on the sources used go to Lindenwood ArcGIS Overview and see the section for Items Used.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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