Illegal drug trade in Aruba

The illegal drug trade in Aruba involves trans-shipment of cocaine and other drugs through Aruba to the United States.

Corruption in Aruba is so widespread that "Claire Sterling, widely acclaimed for her works on drugs and crime, said of it: 'the world's first independent mafia state emerged in 1993.'"^[1] The Italian daily Corriere della Sera described Aruba as "the first state to be bought by the bosses Cosa Nostra." Between 1988 and 1992 the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan was said to have acquired 60% of Aruba through investments in hotels, casinos and the election-campaign of a Prime Minister.^[2] As a result of the public outcry, Aruba's independence from the Netherlands, planned for 1996, was cancelled.^[2]

While drug trafficking through Aruba used to be a major issue, it is much less so today. Aruba was removed from the US State Department’s list of major drug producing and transit countries in 1999. The reason for this decline is unclear. Case Study

References

↑ Griffith, Ivelaw L. (1996-7), "Illicit Arms Trafficking, Corruption, and Governance in the Caribbean", Dickinson Journal of International Law, p501, quoting Claire Sterling, Thieves World 21 (1994)
1 2 Tom Blickman (1997), "The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba", Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1997

Illegal drug trade in the Caribbean

Greater Antilles	Cayman Islands Cuba Dominican Republic Haiti Jamaica Puerto Rico

Leeward Antilles	Aruba Bonaire Curaçao Federal Dependencies of Venezuela

Leeward Islands	Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda British Virgin Islands Guadeloupe Montserrat Saba Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin U.S. Virgin Islands Saint Kitts and Nevis Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten

Windward Islands	Dominica Grenada Martinique Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Other islands	Barbados Bahamas Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands

Continental coasts	Belize Bermuda Colombia Costa Rica French Guiana Guatemala Guyana Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Panama Suriname Venezuela

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 17, 2013. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.