The cat-and-mouse game between the United States and the leaders of Latin America’s drug trade has shifted to this wild stretch of Guatemala, one of the most inhospitable landscapes in the western hemisphere. Jets can carry more than $100m worth of cocaine, to be ferried swiftly out of the jungle, through Mexico and on to the United States.

Over the 50-year US drug war, one truth has prevailed: when one trafficking route closes, another emerges to take its place.

Not long ago, cartels moved more drugs in submarines and fishing boats through the Pacific Ocean. US Coast Guard vessels narrowed that route. Cocaine-filled jets once flew mainly to Mexico and Honduras, until those countries developed aerial interdiction teams.

Cont'd:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/guatemala-rainforest-narcos-cocaine-jets-drug-war-a9615746.html