Triads, Snakeheads, and Flying Money: The Underworld of Chinese Criminal Networks in Latin America and the Caribbean

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) continue to grapple with some of the highest rates of violence and corruption in the world, particularly due to the corrosive presence of transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). Notorious regional TCOs continue to sell drugs worldwide, kill with impunity, bribe local officials, terrorize communities, and build deadly international partnerships with Italian, Russian, and Albanian criminals. But one group has quietly increased its influence throughout this region, even though its customers are half a world away: Chinese criminal networks.

Over the past decade, Chinese criminal groups operating in LAC have specialized in four illegal activities. They ship fentanyl precursors to Mexico, where cartels make them into potent drugs that kill 200 U.S. lives every day; launder money using the “Flying Money” method, adding to cartel coffers that fuel destabilizing violence across the region; illegally traffic wildlife while also engaging in other serious crimes, a concept called convergence; and smuggle an unprecedented number of illegal Chinese migrants crossing the U.S. border through Latin America.

No evidence suggests that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is directly involved in this illicit activity. However, persistent corruption and impunity in both China and LAC mean that PRC provincial and municipal government officials are at least indirectly benefiting from or turning a blind eye to these illegal groups. These networks are often decentralized, although several have links to Chinese triads and the Fujian mafia.