Venezuelans killed in the earthquake shortly after the US deported them: "Most of those whose cases were reconstructed had pending asylum claims when they were detained, their relatives said. About half had been shielded from deportation through TPS until the Trump admin canceled that benefit."
Deported by the U.S., detained in Venezuela — then lost in the earthquakes
The immigrants aboard Flight 164 were pursuing lives in the U.S. when ICE detained them. In Venezuela, they were held in a building that collapsed hours later.
washingtonpost.com
![Even though cocaine production appears to be at record levels, the product itself is small and hard to detect when scattered across such a vast transit zone. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that global cocaine production quadrupled in the decade from 2014 to 2023, rising from 869 to 3,708 tons.[234] Conservatively assuming about 500 kilograms per cubic meter, that entire annual supply could fit into about 225 standard 20-foot shipping containers. (To give a sense of scale, a single large container ship carries about 20,000 such containers.) Break that amount across countless shipments, routes, and concealment methods, and interdiction becomes a classic “needle in a haystack” mission.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t5hgkoxrsxpe3wfisqfeymg5/bafkreicpnfq6wlnnydn7jwjvu6tsco7kvazqka4x7gvam6x32rlye7el7y)
![Smuggling inside shipping containers aboard boats carrying licit cargo. No estimates exist for how many tons of cocaine are smuggled this way each year, because it is impossible to know what has gone undetected. However, large-scale container seizures have become more frequent in recent years, especially at European ports.[236]
Submarines and semi-submersible craft. These have larger payloads than small boats and are harder to detect. Authorities in Colombia and Ecuador periodically raid sites, often hidden in dense Pacific mangrove estuaries, where traffickers build these vessels.[237]
Small boats making short hops up the coasts of South and Central America. This is more time-consuming than using the open ocean and probably requires paying off more corrupt authorities along the way. However, it involves less time in international waters and is less vulnerable to interdiction, lethal or otherwise, from U.S. forces.
Overland transshipment, usually along road networks, perhaps combined with shorter maritime routes. Land routes are the principal vector for migrant smuggling, and drugs are harder to detect and easier to conceal than humans.
Riverine routes. Traffickers are particularly using the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, and their tributaries, to move cocaine to eastern areas of South America, closer to markets in Europe. The Defense Department’s Humire testified that, in response to the boat strikes, traffickers’ “movements shifted eastward through Venezuela and Guyana into Suriname.”[238]
Aerial routes. Smuggling via small aircraft appears to be less frequent than it was during the 20th century, as U.S.-backed “airbridge denial” programs in Colombia, Peru, Honduras, and elsewhere—which today rarely kill people aboard civilian planes—have made aircraft easier to detect and intercept at their destinations. Still, a significant portion of cocaine travels at least part of the way by air. During the 2010s, maps produced by SOUTHCOM estimated that aerial trafficking made u…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t5hgkoxrsxpe3wfisqfeymg5/bafkreigpmyec34kifhfilsd7ek5xd4prn6vbmnkrxo7x5hnj5s2pveqa5y)
