Venezuela Removed from U.S. Drug Trafficking List as Colombia Faces Possible Removal

Is Venezuela still a major corridor for South American cocaine trafficking?

What will U.S. cooperation with Alex Saab mean for the investigation into Nicolás Maduro?

How are criminal groups targeting people who defend land and natural resources in Latin America?

Which country has most recently joined the Shield of the Americas security coalition?

This week, InSight Crime examines four developments reshaping organized crime and regional security.

1: White House Removes Venezuela from Drug List, with Colombia Next in the Balance

The White House has removed Venezuela from the list of countries designated as major drug transit or major illicit drug-producing countries for fiscal year 2027. U.S. President Donald Trump said that, following “positive steps taken under interim President Delcy Rodríguez,” his administration had determined that Venezuela should no longer be classified as having “failed demonstrably to fulfill its drug control commitments.”

The decision rewards Rodríguez’s government. Yet InSight Crime’s on-the-ground investigations have found that a substantial share of cocaine produced in South America still moves through Venezuela, where established smuggling networks exploit the country’s long, porous border with Colombia and its extensive coastline. Shipments are then transported through Caribbean countries such as Trinidad and Tobago before reaching consumers in the United States and Europe.

Trump also said Colombia was poised to resume its place as “our foremost security partner in the hemisphere” with the arrival of Aberlardo de la Espriella as president.

2: Maduro’s Alleged Financial Frontman Pleads Guilty in Miami

Alex Saab, the Colombian-born businessman alleged to have served as a financial frontman for former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, pleaded guilty in a Miami court on Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to launder money. He admitted organizing bribes to Venezuelan officials so companies he secretly controlled could secure contracts under the state-funded food and medicine program. Saab also agreed to forfeit $195 million and cooperate with ongoing federal investigations.

Saab was deported to the United States in May after having been pardoned by the Biden administration and returned to Caracas less than three years earlier. According to AP, U.S. officials may seek his testimony against Maduro, who was arrested in a U.S. military operation in Caracas on January 3 and is awaiting trial in New York on charges including narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking, and weapons offenses. InSight Crime’s special series examines how criminal power is shifting in Venezuela after Maduro. Rodríguez’s government has carried out purges and mining raids, deported Saab, and conducted joint operations with U.S. authorities against the Claritas Sindicato and Tren de Aragua founder Héctor Guerrero Flores, known as “Niño Guerrero,” who was killed in a U.S. strike in June. Even so, the country’s deeply entrenched hybrid criminal architecture remains largely intact.

3: Organized Crime Implicated in Most Killings of Land Defenders

Organized crime groups or contract killers were suspected in more than one-third of killings of land and environmental defenders worldwide, making criminal actors the most frequently identified perpetrators. Global Witness reported that at least 105 defenders—85 percent of the global total—were killed in Latin America in 2025, with Colombia the region’s deadliest country.

Criminal groups target land defenders in two main ways. Directly, InSight Crime’s GameChangers 2025 analysis of environmental crime in the Amazon traced how armed groups have moved into unauthorized gold mining, logging, and land grabbing, turning anyone who documents or protests their expansion into a target. More insidiously—and far harder to measure—a Corruption Kills investigation found that extractive projects in Honduras had captured the permitting, prosecutorial, and judicial systems intended to protect communities. The result has been a pattern of threats that persist and killings that go uninvestigated.

4: Shield of the Americas Coalition Expands

Peru has become the latest country in the region to join the Shield of the Americas regional security coalition, President Keiko Fujimori announced in Lima as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio concluded his tour of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Days later, Chilean President José Antonio Kast said his country would remain an observer for the time being. Meanwhile, troops from Peru, the United States, Argentina, and Chile trained together near Tarapoto in the Peruvian Amazon as part of Southern Vanguard 2026, a U.S. Army South exercise.

The Shield of the Americas continues to gain members, but InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott and managing editor Deborah Bonello argue in this InSight Take that, months after its creation, the coalition still lacks an approved operational plan, defined objectives beyond drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism,” and clear obligations for participating governments.

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