“Those Who Own the Land, Hold the Power”: Governing Trade Routes in Honduras

• In Event: Rethinking Organized Crime: Production, Trade and Governance

Abstract

Honduras is widely recognised as a key transit country for cocaine trafficking. While it is well known that multiple actors are involved in the trade – particularly transportistas, small criminal groups that move wholesale cocaine shipments across the country – much less is understood about how these groups interact while operating within national territory. Typically, transportistas operate within the specific territories they control, acting as intermediaries between wholesale sellers and buyers of cocaine by facilitating transportation and providing protection for drug shipments. In many cases, they operate in neighbouring territories, which might suggest potential for conflict and competition.
Drawing on fieldwork in Honduras and analysis of judicial documents, this paper shows that conflict between groups is however not always the norm. Although clashes do occur, cooperation is surprisingly common. Transportistas often coordinate logistics and allow other groups to transit through their territories, offering services such as transportation, armed escort, and secured passage in exchange for payment. These findings challenge common assumptions about competition among criminal actors within illicit markets. Instead, they reveal how these groups often rely on negotiated arrangements and cooperation to move drug shipments across the country. In doing so, the paper contributes to debates on criminal governance and the drug trade in Central America by shedding light on both the services transportistas provide along this segment of the cocaine supply chain and the cooperative dynamics that sustain it.

Author

• Emilia Ziosi, University of Oxford