The Economist Says 70% of the World’s Cocaine Comes From Colombia
A sweeping visual investigation recently published by The Economist has laid bare the staggering scale and devastating social toll of Colombia’s cocaine trafficking industry.
The exhaustive report, titled “Inside Colombia’s cocaine factories: the $15bn drug trade that has touched every corner of society,” utilizes the striking imagery of photojournalist Mads Nissen to document the illicit supply chain from deep jungle laboratories to the streets of Europe.
The most alarming takeaway from the investigation is the sheer dominance of the domestic market: Colombia currently supplies approximately 70 percent of the world’s cocaine, a boom so massive that the illicit drug officially surpassed oil as the country’s primary export in 2024.
Illicit trade is deeply entrenched in Colombia’s rural scene
The financial incentives driving this illicit cocaine economy are deeply entrenched in Colombia’s rural landscape. The report details the grueling production process, noting that it takes roughly 600 kilograms of raw coca leaves to produce a single kilogram of cocaine powder. For rural farming families, harvesting these leaves can yield daily incomes that double what they would traditionally earn picking coffee.
These raw materials are then processed in clandestine kitchens using heavy industrial solvents, such as gasoline, to extract a thick paste that can reach up to 90 percent purity. From there, the drug flows out of the country through a myriad of methods, ranging from human mules at the Bogota airport to heavily loaded semi-submersibles launching from Pacific ports like Tumaco and Buenaventura to feed a global market of roughly 25 million consumers.
Beyond the economics, the report sharply highlights the tragic human cycle perpetuated by the trade, focusing specifically on marginalized urban communities like Potrero Grande in Cali. Many residents in these neighborhoods originally arrived as displaced refugees, fleeing rural cartel violence.
Lack of economic opportunities, another primary driver behind national cocaine production
Tragically, a severe lack of economic opportunity in the cities often pushes the youth of these displaced families directly into the ranks of the very criminal structures their parents escaped.
Nissen emphasizes that this is not a marginal phenomenon, but rather a trans-national crisis that directly links the sprawling production networks of Latin America to the everyday habits of European consumers. The relentless nature of this multibillion-dollar industry paints a grim picture for law enforcement.
The report follows the National Police’s elite anti-narcotics unit, Los Comandos Jungla, as they conduct aerial raids and use explosives to incinerate clandestine processing laboratories hidden in the jungles of Putumayo. Despite the high operational costs and the sheer danger of these missions, the resilience of the criminal networks remains largely unbroken. As one exhausted officer bluntly admitted to the publication after destroying a cluster of six laboratories: by tomorrow, they could easily be producing again.