There is a novelty in the Brazilian illicit drug market that is progressively gaining space among traffickers and consumers throughout the country. It is about Colombian marijuana. Known as "Colombia", "colombinha", "colom", "cripa" or "creepy", depending on the region, the drug, which mostly comes from areas controlled by armed groups that operate in the Pacific corridor of the neighboring country It has a different appearance, it is of better quality, stronger and more expensive than the Paraguayan marijuana that traditionally supplies most of the South American giant. While a gram of Paraguayan marijuana in São Paulo costs about five reais (one dollar), Colombian marijuana costs between 20 and 30 reais (between four and six dollars) per gram, according to an investigation carried out by EL PAÍS among consumers, traffickers and the Federal police.The product has attracted the attention of suppliers - more and more often they offer the two types of marijuana in parallel - and consumers - due to its higher purity and more powerful effects.
This interest in the national market is reflected in the seizures of Colombian marijuana carried out by the Federal Police in recent years. According to the unpublished 26-year historical series to which EL PAÍS has had access, between 1995 and 2014 there were practically no marijuana seizures on the border and on the river routes used by criminal factions such as the First Command of the Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho (CV) to bring cocaine from Colombia to Brazil via the Amazon. However, in 2014, the Federal Police seized the first ton of Colombian marijuana that arrived through that route. The 1,342 kilos were almost 10 times more than the 143 kilos that had been seized the previous year, in 2013. Since 2014, less than a tonne per year has not been confiscated again by this route. In 2018,seizures reached nearly 10 tons (9,420 kilograms), the record so far. In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, seizures reached almost two tons, according to the Federal Police. It is not much compared to the amount of marijuana that comes from Paraguay, but it grows aggressively.
"I remember the first time I went to buy
maría
and the dealer had the Colombian one, it was in 2017," says Alonso * (all the names of traffickers and consumers used in this report are fictitious), a 32-year-old Physical Education teacher who works as a personal trainer in São Paulo. “The smell seemed good to me, much better than that of traditional marie, and I took a gram with me to try it. I loved it and today I confess that I no longer smoke pressed pot, "says Alonso, who uses the drug to relax after intense workouts. According to him, despite being more expensive, the Colombian is much stronger and now it is obtained from the same 'camels' [vendors] as the Paraguayan.
A trafficker who works in a middle-class neighborhood in the southern part of São Paulo buys both types of marijuana from the same suppliers, traffickers bigger than him.
He says that in the city of São Paulo there is only one way for a new product to appear on the market in this way and become part of the city's usual supply.
"It's the faction, sure," he says, referring to the PCC.
"Although there are different gangs trafficking, they at least authorize it," he believes.
A consumer smokes a marijuana joint in the metropolitan region of São Paulo.Anderson Prado
The trafficker also sells organic marijuana selected by crossing species of the “skunk” type, similar to that sold legally in the Netherlands and the United States, although produced in São Paulo by a friendly trafficker.
"The Colombian is between the 'skunk' and the pressed in terms of quality and price," he says.
High value added
"It is an enriched marijuana, with a high content of THC, its production is different, its transport is different," declares Commissioner Elvis Secco, director of the Coordination of Repression of Drugs, Weapons and Criminal Factions of the Federal Police. “They do not need to transport large shipments, we have no record of a single seizure with five tons of creepy [Colombian marijuana], for example, because it has a high value, so it compensates for the transport of smaller volumes, which also hinders the seizures ”, affirms the policeman. "To traffic this marijuana from Colombia to Brazil they are using the northern route of the country, which passes mainly through the Amazon and its tributaries," he says.
Secco explains that the large criminal factions and smaller gangs use the same Amazon river routes, boats, personnel and infrastructure that they use to bring cocaine, which is their main business.
“This special drug comes on the route that is used to traffic cocaine.
It is very common for the same cocaine traffickers to traffic Colombian marijuana, something that does not happen with Paraguayan marijuana.
Those who specialize in trafficking in Paraguayan marijuana do not have logistics for cocaine and vice versa ”.
The marijuana produced in Colombia is more potent and in Brazil it can cost up to six times more than the Paraguayan one.Anderson Prado
“We need to delve into this issue of Colombian marijuana.
We have asked our attaché at the embassy in Colombia to bring us more information about this phenomenon on the Colombian side, ”says the commissioner.
“I don't know how production control is done there, we need more information.
Are the plantations authorized or are they illegal?
What is Colombia doing to combat this traffic on its side of the border?
We don't know anything about that ”.
On the other bank of the rivers
In early March, Colombian Army troops carried out what they described as "the largest marijuana seizure to date in the Amazon region." The shipment of 75 sacks of creepy, of about 3.5 tons, was transported in two boats on the Yarí River, between the departments of Caquetá and Amazonas, bordering Brazil, and belonged to one of the dissidents of the extinct guerrilla of the FARC that withdrew from the peace process. Like most creepy marijuana, it came from the department of Cauca, a region devastated by the violence of various armed actors operating in the Pacific Corridor. The destination of the shipment, valued by the authorities at approximately 1.7 million dollars, was Brazil, where it would enter through an intricate river network.
These strains are also known in Colombia as high-octane marijuana, due to their high concentrations of THC, the main active substance in the plant. About five years ago, stories began to arrive from the Colombian side of the border about the existence of sophisticated greenhouses that were used to grow
creepy
and that illuminated the Cauca mountains at night. Growers use lights to accelerate growth. The “golden triangle”, which includes the municipalities of Miranda, Caloto and Corinto, has come to concentrate the production of 60% of the illegal marijuana grown in Colombia. In mid-2019, the region caught the attention of the entire country when authorities used a highly criticized strategy to combat illegal plantations: cutting off electricity to these populations. But it was not possible to break a productive chain that thrives in the shadow of the cocaine trade.
Currently Colombia is by far the world's leading producer of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, with 154,000 hectares cultivated at the end of 2019, according to the latest annual information available from the United Nations Integrated Illicit Crops Monitoring System. . "The
creepy
weight of marijuana
in drug trafficking it is relative. We do not have satellite measurements of marijuana production, we know very little about the area and size, but compared to the hectares of coca leaf it is a marginal economy, ”says Daniel Rico, from C-Analisis, an applied criminology company. “Marijuana does not require so many intermediaries, it is not such a long logistics chain, it does not require so many inputs and so many precursors, the process is much simpler. Although the price is lower, the profitability is higher ”, details this expert. "For the Government of the United States, which puts the resources and a good part of the priorities of the anti-narcotics agenda,
creepy
marijuana
is not a problem because it is not reaching them," and that explains why it is the target of fewer operations, he concludes.
A shipment of Colombian marijuana seized by the Colombian Army in the Amazon region on its way to Brazil. COLOMBIAN ARMY
However, its cultivation remains a considerable source of income for illegal groups such as the FARC dissidents, explains Jeremy McDermott, executive director of InSight Crime, which has conducted several investigations into the matter. In addition to supplying the domestic market, it is also exported to various places. “We have found creepy in Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil and even in Trinidad and Tobago. Obviously there is already a well-established export system, ”he explains to EL PAÍS. It is much heavier than coca, so it is not easy to hide or transport. Large shipments use established coca routes - many through Pacific ports - but much of what goes to the South American giant does so through the Amazon region.To get it out to Brazil, we need the help of the dissidents led by Gentil Duarte, a former FARC command, since they control the rivers from the plains to the south of the country. Through these river corridors, both cocaine base paste and marijuana packages are transported.
Traffic routes
According to the Federal Police, Colombian marijuana enters Brazil through other routes used by drug traffickers to bring cocaine.
One leaves Colombia, passes through Venezuela and enters Brazil through the border with the state of Roraima.
Another drop to Peru and Bolivia and enters Brazilian territory through the states of Acre, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso del Sur.
From there, it is distributed nationwide by gangs associated with various criminal factions, mainly the PCC, which dominates drug trafficking in São Paulo, the main national consumer market, and the Comando Vermelho, predominant in Rio de Janeiro (the second market of the country's drugs).
The Vaupés River, in the Amazon region of Río Negro, near the border with Colombia, is part of the river network used by drug traffickers to transport marijuana and cocaine from Colombia to Brazil. Reuters / Reuters
In 2014, the PCC began its expansion throughout the country. After consolidating the entire cocaine distribution route to Europe and Africa from the port of Santos, the faction becomes hegemonic in key places on the borders with Paraguay and Bolivia, where marijuana and cocaine produced in the two countries arrive, respectively. . In 2016, the PCC broke an alliance of at least fifteen years with the CV, with whom it began to dispute the territory. After a series of massacres in prisons in the northern and northeastern regions of Brazil that left dozens of deaths, due to the war between factions caused by the expansion of the PCC in these regions, the situation calmed down a bit as of 2019.
According to the director of the Coordination for the Repression of Drugs, Weapons and Criminal Factions of the Federal Police, for at least two years there has been a kind of peace or truce agreement between the PCC and other factions operating in the northern region, such as the Family of the North (FDN) and the Comando Vermelho. "There was a great expansion of the PCC, which managed to establish itself in the northern region and in almost the entire country, and today it has more influence than the other factions," reports Commissioner Secco. "The CV also operates on the Amazon route, as do various regional factions with which the two big ones have alliances," he says. The period coincides with the beginning of the arrival of Colombian marijuana to Brazil in large quantities.
In practice, the abundant production in the neighboring country, together with the distribution network and wide acceptance in the Brazilian consumer market, has consolidated “colombinha” as another profitable product for drug traffickers in both countries.
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