Golden Age of Cocaine Smuggling Puts Brazil’s Fragile Truce With Trump at Risk

Drug trafficking on oil and soy vessels is surging as industrialization transforms the once-remote region.

Vinicius Almeida, the state security secretary, at the International Police Cooperation Center in Manaus, where Brazilian law enforcement officials collaborate with counterparts from neighboring countries. Photographer: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg Photo by Dado Galdieri /Photographer: Dado Galdieri/Bloo

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(Bloomberg) — Murilo Sampaio stood on a camouflage-painted boat on the Amazon, scanning for smugglers, when three oil barges appeared on the horizon.

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The military police chief had been told to check for drugs on every vessel coming down the Solimões, the name given to the upper stretches of the Amazon in Brazil. As Sampaio and his crew reviewed the convoy’s documents, they soon learned its origin: Peru’s biggest oil field, run by Houston-based PetroTal Corp.

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When drug-sniffing dogs padded aboard, they stopped at a sealed compartment. “Everything was fine up until then,” Sampaio said in an interview. “But when the dogs came on board, they were able to identify a scent.”

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The dogs eventually sniffed out more than half a metric ton of cocaine, leading to the arrest of all six of the convoy’s crew members. Because the details of their court cases haven’t been made public, it wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the crew members have been convicted of a crime.In Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, drug busts like the one Sampaio led on April 16 are becoming a regular occurrence. Billions of dollars in investment have turned the once-isolated region into a major conduit for crop exports and a type of Peruvian oil that’s in demand from US Gulf Coast refineries.

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That transformation has meant more river terminals and barge traffic — and more opportunities to smuggle cocaine. Data from the Amazonas state government shows cocaine seizures in the region have roughly tripled in two years after authorities started deploying camouflaged, multilevel boats called river bases to inspect vessels. Police in Amazonas intercepted 15 tons of the narcotic last year, a haul with a street value of about $1.8 billion in the US, based on UN price estimates from 2021. But these apprehensions are a fraction of the total amount going down the waterways, according to conversations with the military, law enforcement and researchers.  

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The illicit trade is putting Brazil on a collision course with US President Donald Trump’s push to combat cartels, a campaign that has included military strikes against alleged drug boats and threats to halt aid to Colombia. A surge in narcotics trafficking threatens to shatter a fragile reconciliation between Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after the US president imposed tariffs on the South American nation, accusing it of unfairly targeting former President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist convicted of plotting a coup.

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The Trump administration could easily “frame the activities of organized criminal groups as part of a broader retaliation strategy toward Brazil,” said Thiago Amâncio, the lead analyst in Brazil for Control Risks, a consultaah nncy that tracks organized crime. “The US has historically leveraged the drug war narrative in Latin America as a political tool, and this is particularly evident now with Trump.”

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In an emailed response to questions, a State Department spokesperson said the US “supports Brazilian security forces to more effectively detect and interdict these illicit activities along Brazil’s major waterways and at their maritime ports, in line with our security cooperation with other partner governments in the Southern Cone.”

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As Brazil grapples with growing social and environmental fallout from cocaine trafficking in the Amazon, it’s also preparing to host the world’s biggest climate meeting. COP30, the UN Climate Change Conference, will take place in November in Belém, near the mouth of the river.

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At the heart of the Amazon cocaine trade is a river network known as the Solimões Route. From jungle labs in Colombia and Peru, drugs are dispatched eastward along the waterways of the Solimões to Brazilian ports on the Atlantic, and then on to markets in Europe and Asia. 

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“We’re talking about hundreds of rivers,” said João Maciel Rosa, a military police lieutenant and author of The Solimões Route: Drug Trafficking in the Amazon. “Only between 3% and 5% of the border lands between Brazil and the cocaine producing countries is policed.”

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One of Brazil’s two biggest gangs, the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, controls most of the Solimões Route and it has become a major source of their cocaine imports, according to officials and researchers. On Oct. 28, police launched their most lethal operation yet against the gang in Rio de Janeiro, where it’s based, ahead of events there linked to the COP30 climate summit.

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The distance from the Colombian border to Manaus, the biggest city in Brazil’s Amazon, is almost as far as New York City is from Chicago. To make the journey, smugglers use armed speedboats, commercial vessels and even fleets of canoes to make it down the waterways. They also employ makeshift semi-submersibles known as narco-submarines, which sometimes become trapped on sandbars during droughts.

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“We go in when they get stuck,” Marcus Vinícius Oliveira de Almeida, the state security secretary for Amazonas, said in an interview in Manaus. “They seek help from smaller boats to unload the drugs.”

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Brazil’s thriving agriculture industry is making the traffickers’ job easier. Grains shipments from Amazonian states have almost quadrupled in the past decade thanks to a buildout of logistics infrastructure as crops are grown on land that was once used for cattle grazing, according to the Association of Private Port Terminals. Global soy demand has risen 38% in the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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The growing commerce offers more ways to move drugs and makes it harder for authorities to inspect everything coming down the rivers. Like the Peruvian oil barge intercepted by Sampaio’s team, smugglers have infiltrated soy cargoes at export ports where the Amazon meets the Atlantic. 

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In October of last year, federal police seized 500 kilos of cocaine at a port in the Amazonian state of Maranhão, the police said in a statement. It was stashed in a bulk carrier operated by Polish Steamship Company, or Polsteam, that was waiting to load soybeans before heading to Spain. Polsteam didn’t respond to a request for comment. At the time, Polsteam told Polish media that the crew discovered the drugs and alerted Brazilian police.

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Amazonian Oil

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Oil shipments are also providing more places to hide cocaine. Across the border in the Peruvian Amazon, PetroTal has more than tripled production at its Bretaña field in the past five years to about 20,000 barrels a day.

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PetroTal said that it sells almost all of the oil to Novum Energy Trading Corp., an energy trading and logistics company with an office in Houston — an arrangement that PetroTal has said allows it to avoid Peru’s unreliable pipeline network to the Pacific coast.

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Novum often charters boats from other companies to transport the crude, according to the company. The owner of the barge carrying the cocaine is Navetrans, a Brazilian logistics company, police said.

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The barges travel down the Amazon to Manaus, where the oil is transferred to larger vessels and shipped to the Atlantic region, according to PetroTal’s second-quarter report. In the first half of 2025, 89% of PetroTal’s production was exported through Brazil, with the rest shipped on barges to the Iquitos refinery in Peru. Valero Energy Corp. and Marathon Petroleum Corp. have unloaded Bretaña crude in the US over the past two years, according to ship-tracking data from analytics firm Kpler. Spokespeople for Valero and Marathon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

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To prevent illicit activity within PetroTal’s premises or operations, “we maintain a comprehensive security framework in line with advice from local and international law enforcement authorities and other experts,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “Our firm is committed to operating with the highest standards of integrity, safety, and security – and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.” 

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PetroTal condemns illegal activity including narcotics trafficking and is supportive of initiatives by authorities in Peru, Brazil and elsewhere to combat such activities, according to the spokesperson.

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Novum Energy “operates under strict compliance with national and international laws and maintains zero tolerance for any illegal activity within its supply chain,” a spokesperson said by email. “We subcontract licensed and permitted shipping companies to provide transportation services from Peru to Brazil. These companies operate their own vessels and crews, and Novum does not exercise operational control over them.”

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Novum said each service provider must meet meet stringent vetting and qualification criteria, and ship owners must have international-level insurance. The company also requires independent third-party inspection companies to examine vessels prior to loading, the spokesperson said. Novum continuously refines its safety management procedures and internal controls to address risks including drug trafficking in the Amazon Basin, according to the company.

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People answering the phone at a Navetrans office in Manaus declined to comment when reached by Bloomberg News. The company didn’t respond to an email and a letter delivered to that office. Because the details of the court case involving the April 16 drug bust haven’t been made public, it wasn’t immediately clear whether the police have accused Navetrans or any other company of wrongdoing.

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There’s no indication in police statements or court documents reviewed by Bloomberg that any of the companies knew the oil barge intercepted on April 16 was being used to smuggle drugs. In Brazil, ship owners aren’t automatically criminally liable if drugs are found on board one of their vessels, as long as they can show that they had no knowledge of the crime, according to federal law.

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The April seizure was at least the third time smugglers were apprehended using Bretaña oil shipments to get cocaine into Brazil. In June of last year, about 1.7 tons of cocaine and marijuana were seized on a barge coming from the Peruvian field during a routine stop. Dogs were able to sniff out the drugs hidden in an oil tank and nine people were arrested. 

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In November, more than 600 kilograms of cocaine were seized on another oil barge that had loaded at Bretaña, according to court documents seen by Bloomberg News.

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“We’ve been checking fuel transport barges more often,” Almeida said. 

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Golden Age

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Since it’s mostly illicit, the global drug trade is inherently difficult to quantify. Still, all signs point to a golden age for smugglers in Brazil. 

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Cocaine seizures recorded by state police forces surged nearly fivefold from 2015 through 2023, according to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety’s (FBSP) most recent report on crime. Worldwide, consumption and production of the narcotic continue to break records, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

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Against a backdrop of heightened diplomatic tensions between the US and its South American neighbors, the uptick in cocaine trafficking is a political liability for Brazil.

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Earlier this year, Brazil resisted US pressure to label two major drug gangs as terrorist groups, which would give the Trump administration more leeway to sanction companies linked to the criminal organizations. 

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Along with bombing alleged Venezuelan drug boats, the Trump administration has decertified Colombia as a partner in battling cartels. It’s also considering stationing troops in Ecuador to combat a major trafficking route, although Ecuador hasn’t yet signed off on the plan. Increased deterrence in Venezuela and Ecuador could steer even more drugs down the Amazon.

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In Brazil, traffickers unload cocaine when they get to Manaus, where much of it gets shipped out in containers from an industrial zone, according to Almeida. A portion of the drugs supply a booming domestic market, and the rest goes farther down the river to ports on the Atlantic coast. Proceeds get laundered into ventures such as ranching, as well as illegal logging and mining, Almeida said. 

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As the drug trade expands, it’s creating concern that cartels will gain control of parts of Brazil’s Amazon, said Rodrigo Soares, a Lemann Foundation Professor of Economics at Sao Paulo-based research institute Insper.

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“The concern is what we see in northern Mexico, and certain areas in Colombia, where highly structured and armed groups are in very large areas,” he said.

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Stolen Turtles 

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In remote areas of the Amazon, people are witnessing a surge in drug-related crime.

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Carauari, a town on the Juruá River populated with indigenous groups and descendants of rubber tappers, became a stop on the Solimões Route early last year, Manoel Cunha, a community leader, said in an interview in August.

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At first, gang members started turning up at public festivals and parties to get young people hooked on narcotics, he said. Now, drug users poach from a community tortoise breeding center and fish ponds to sell the animals for money. Anyone who publicly stands up to the gangs gets death threats, according to Cunha.

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“This is destroying the community,” he said in an interview from Manaus, where he attended an FBSP security forum in August. “Out there, there’s no civil police, there’s no public prosecutor’s office, there’s no formal justice.”     

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In Belém, a city of about 1.3 million people where the Amazon meets the Atlantic, authorities are ramping up security and mapping gang activity ahead of COP30. The summit is a test of whether Brazil can tame deep-rooted criminal economies, including drug trafficking.

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During COP30, the Brazilian government will release a report on Amazonian communities most at risk from organized crime, which includes Belém as well as border towns, according to Marta Machado, Brazil’s national secretary for drug affairs.

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“It’s very severe in the border regions,’” Machado said on the sidelines of the forum in Manaus. “Belém is a major center as well, a huge hub, which also includes drug trafficking with air transportation.” 

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Narcotrafficking also carries environmental risks. Drug laboratories in Colombia and Peru contaminate groundwater, and it takes about 80 gallons of gasoline to produce a kilogram of cocaine, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC. Drug profits finance illegal land purchases for farming and cattle grazing. Cartels also fund illicit mining, logging and even wildlife trafficking, often on indigenous lands.

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Brazil has become the world’s No. 2 consumer of the powerful stimulant after the US, and a chunk of the Solimões cocaine either goes to Amazonian cities or gets shipped to major population centers in southern Brazil, according to the UNODC. In Manaus, cocaine is available at late-night bars across the city. 

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Brazil’s large population, its proximity to cocaine-producing countries and cheap prices have led to a surge in use, said Francisco Netto, executive secretary of the drug program at Fiocruz, a foundation dedicated to science, health and social development. 

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Coca cultivation in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia more than tripled in the ten years through 2023 to a record 375,300 hectares (926,645 acres), according to the UNODC. 

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To tackle the problem, authorities in Brazil’s Amazon have increased the number of river bases and are expanding a fleet of bulletproof speedboats to carry out more inspections and raids. But for cash-strapped South American countries, policing a jungle frontier longer than the US-Mexico border is an insurmountable task. 

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“Our biggest challenge is the enormity of the state,” said Almeida. 

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Some of the cargoes seized have exceeded six tons, indicating the traffickers weren’t concerned enough about getting caught to split them up into smaller shipments.

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So far, enforcement efforts in Brazil have done little to stem cocaine smuggling. Increased surveillance along Brazil’s southern border with Paraguay, and along its northern border with Colombia, has steered more volumes to the Solimões Route. 

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Crackdowns at the main rivers have pushed flows to even more remote areas, such as the town where Cunha’s neighbors breed tortoises.

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In June, a record 6.5 tons of cocaine and marijuana were seized after police responded to an anonymous tip about a speedboat moving drugs down the Solimões. The resulting 40-minute gun battle left two traffickers dead, while the others escaped into the forest, according to the police.

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Even with the recent increase in drug seizures, Brazil will never be able to eradicate narcotrafficking in the Amazon, Andrés  Preciado, the director of conflict and security at Bogota-based think tank FIP, said in an interview in August. 

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“It’s not tactically or operationally possible to win the war on drugs,” Preciado said. “The evidence that we have after five decades is that the state doesn’t win.”  

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—With assistance from Giovanna Serafim.

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