The Predatory Economy Thriving in Panama’s Darién Gap
With millions on the move, businesses and criminal groups are turning big profits with destructive consequences.
METETÍ, Panama —The late ex-president of Peru, Alan García, once quipped that Latin America’s cocaine cartels were the region’s “only successful multinational.” Now, there’s another: the transnational migration economy, made up of human smugglers and legal businesses that ferry migrants desperate for safety and economic opportunity through difficult-to-cross national borders between South America and the United States. No part of the trans-continental journey is easy. But at bottlenecks where the going gets especially tough—either due to natural obstacles, like Panama’s...
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