The inauguration of the Chancay megaport in Peru in November 2024, presided over by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping and then President Dina Boluarte, was hailed by Beijing as a landmark achievement for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Latin America. With an investment of $3.5 billion and under the control of Chinese state-owned COSCO Shipping, Chancay was presented as an engine of modernization and development. Yet, behind this narrative of prosperity, a less visible risk is emerging: that Chancay could become a strategic hub for Chinese organized crime.
As detailed in the first and second parts of this report, China’s growing economic and political footprint in the region has been accompanied by the silent expansion of its criminal networks. Today, Beijing is the primary source of chemical analogues for fentanyl production, a key facilitator in cartel money laundering, and a major participant in illicit markets such as wildlife trafficking. “A Chinese transnational criminal ecosystem is taking shape with increasingly deep roots in the region,” Leland Lazarus, an expert on security and Sino-Latin American relations, told Diálogo.
Investigations by The Washington Post, investigative journalism organization ProPublica, and academic reports from Florida International University (FIU), as well as intelligence agencies, suggest that this phenomenon is enabled by a degree of permissiveness — and at times complicity — on the part of the Chinese state. “Beijing’s strategic interests converge with the illicit activities of mafias, which end up acting as silent allies in the Chinese Communist Party’s global power machinery,” Sebastián Rotella, an investigative journalist with ProPublica, told Diálogo.
The aggressive expansion of Chinese investments in Latin America is not only reshaping the region’s economic map but also intensifying dangerous convergences with organized crime. “Chinese criminal organizations tend to settle where the main BRI initiatives are developed,” Christopher Hernández-Roy, deputy director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Diálogo.
Among these investments, seaports hold a critical position. A recent CSIS report reveals that China controls — directly or indirectly — at least 37 ports in Latin America. While public debate focuses on their potential dual (civil and military) use, less attention is given to their possible transformation into protected logistics corridors for criminal networks. “These infrastructures could become nerve centers where Chinese mafias and Latin American cartels converge, with alarming consequences for regional security,” Hernández-Roy said.
Economic gateway or criminal Trojan horse?
For years, Chinese mafias operated discreetly in Latin America, shielded by the anonymity of the diaspora. Their initial focus was on extorting Chinese merchants and businesspeople, as demonstrated by the dismantling of the Pixiu gang in Argentina in 2016.
However, that initial strategy, while still present, has evolved into something far more complex. “Chinese criminal networks no longer limit themselves to victimizing their own community but have also forged alliances with the most powerful Latin American cartels. Each side has what the other wants,” Hernández-Roy explained.
While cartels seek chemical analogues for synthetic drug production, Chinese criminal organizations concentrate on high-value natural resources, such as minerals, exotic woods, and species of flora and fauna highly prized on the Asian black market. What began as an opportunistic link has solidified into large-scale criminal exchange. “The illicit trade in iron in Mexico or the recent copper thefts in Chile, attributed to Chinese mafias, illustrate how this relationship has evolved into illicit industrial operations,” Hernández-Roy said.
In this context, ports controlled by Chinese companies are projected as points of convergence between these two illegal worlds. And although ports are naturally magnets for illicit activity, China’s control significantly amplifies the risks.
Ports at the service of crime
Beyond capital and infrastructure, China exports its institutional model, which is characterized by opacity. “As an authoritarian regime, China depends on a lack of transparency in its relationships. Countries that sign investment and infrastructure agreements with Beijing end up tied to that logic, with limited accountability,” explained Hernández-Roy.
The result is the creation of strategic infrastructure where China’s geopolitical interests take precedence over the host states’ control capabilities. In these enclaves, centralized control aligned with CCP guidelines prevails, supported by opaque contracts, closed administrative structures, and minimal cooperation with local authorities. Experts warn that all of this facilitates the establishment of criminal networks protected by legal loopholes and gray areas.
Emblematic examples of this phenomenon are the ports of Balboa and Cristóbal, situated at both ends of the Panama Canal and managed by Hutchison Ports, a Chinese company with close ties to Beijing. “The level of cooperation that the Panamanian government can obtain from Hutchison is not the same as it receives from other terminals,” Evan Ellis, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies at the U.S. Army War College, told Diálogo. “When you have opaque ports, politicians reluctant to confront China, and a lack of internal controls, you are talking about a loss of sovereignty,” he said.
That loss is apparent in the restricted access to the facilities. “Chinese companies have the right to limit access to the ports of Balboa and Colón [Cristóbal]. What happens inside their facilities is, to a large extent, a mystery,” Eddie Tapiero, a Panamanian economist and former presidential advisor, told Diálogo.
The lack of transparency enables bribery, corruption, and the systematic infiltration of criminal networks, which are further shielded by cultural and linguistic barriers. “It is easier for them to bribe or infiltrate when it comes to Chinese facilities that operate within a centralized, closed structure with little transparency,” Hernández-Roy added.
The risk intensifies when port operations are fully vertically integrated. “If you have a port that is fully operated by China, as is the case with Chancay in Peru and, to a certain extent, also Paranaguá in Brazil or Kingston in Jamaica, then you are going to have a criminal ecosystem growing around that port,” Hernández-Roy warned.
Chancay: The new gateway for transnational crime
The threat is even greater in deep-water ports like Chancay. Designed to accommodate the world’s largest container ships, this enclave will allow massive volumes of cargo to be moved quickly and with fewer controls. “Chancay will not only deepen the existing trade deficit, but it will also open a direct route for introducing illicit activities without intermediaries and with minimal oversight,” Eduardo Gamarra, a professor of international relations at FIU, told Diálogo.
The danger extends beyond illegal goods to include a projected influx of migrants from China. “Peru is going to become a massive port of entry for the Chinese population, and in every diaspora there is an inevitable component of crime,” Gamarra said.
Gamarra points to Panama as a parallel case, where criminal networks operating within the Chinese diaspora have been linked to drug trafficking, smuggling, and methamphetamine rings, and are currently under strict surveillance by the Panamanian government. “The magnitude of the projected investment in Chancay, and its geostrategic position as a new gateway to the Pacific, could replicate and even escalate this phenomenon in Peruvian territory,” he added.
Selective cooperation and tolerance of illegality
Added to the physical and operational vulnerability of Chinese-controlled ports is Beijing’s weak commitment to the fight against organized crime. “China has already shown that its cooperation in this area can become a tool for diplomatic pressure,” Hernández-Roy said.
“Control over security in ports such as Chancay could be used as a bargaining chip in political negotiations, leaving local governments in a position subordinate to Beijing’s interests,” Hernández-Roy added.
Experts agree that there is no true separation between the Chinese regime’s commercial and political interests. “We cannot forget that the Port of Chancay is the result of a geostrategic decision made by China some time ago,” Gamarra said.
Compounding this scenario is a history of corruption that has tainted multiple Chinese investment projects in the region, further weakening state controls and facilitating the infiltration of illicit networks. A 2021 study by the AidData research laboratory revealed that 35 percent of Chinese-funded projects worldwide encountered problems related to corruption, environmental impacts, and labor violations. “Across the region, Chinese companies have been implicated in cases of bribery and illegal kickback networks that have benefited local officials in exchange for contracts and privileged access,” Gamarra added.
These practices not only weaken democratic institutions but also create fertile ground for organized crime infiltration by eroding state controls and hindering effective oversight of megaprojects. “The port of Chancay presented irregularities that ‘magically’ disappeared during negotiations, and when there is corruption, criminal activity inevitably follows,” warned Hernández-Roy.
Wildlife trafficking corridors
Strategic ports under opaque Chinese management, protected by cultural and linguistic barriers, have become key nodes for wildlife trafficking. Although the focus has historically been on drug trafficking and mineral smuggling, today this new, more secretive and less regulated illicit front is advancing rapidly.
Latin America and the Caribbean are home to nearly 60 percent of the planet’s wildlife, making the region a prime target for transnational criminal networks. According to InSight Crime, the Chinese black market for exotic species has consolidated China as the main destination for this illegal trade. Shipments of everything from precious woods and shark fins to fish, reptiles, birds, and felines, originate in marginalized rural communities and reach organizations with privileged access to ports and logistics corridors. Demand, which ranges from traditional Chinese medicine to exotic pets, is estimated to be worth around $23 billion annually, according to InSight Crime.
Of particular concern is that recent research confirms that this boom is directly linked to the expansion of Chinese investment. A study by the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), Illegal Trade in Wild Cats and Its Link to Chinese-led Development in Central and South America, revealed that trafficking is not primarily linked to long-settled Chinese communities, but rather to the recent arrival of workers associated with megaprojects such as ports, dams, and highways.
Along the same lines, journalist Sharon Guynup, writing for National Geographic, documented that jaguar trafficking skyrocketed simultaneously with the advance of Beijing-funded projects. Many criminal networks previously engaged solely in drug trafficking or illegal mining have added ecological crimes to their portfolios, effectively doubling wildlife trafficking in the region.
The location of these investments helps explain the problem: Much of the construction led by Chinese companies takes place in remote, jungle-covered areas, where the boundaries between legal and illegal economies are blurred, facilitating contact between Chinese workers and local criminal networks.
In Bolivia, a network of mining companies linked to China, often operating under the guise of local cooperatives, is facing intense scrutiny for driving social and environmental damage across the Amazon. Environmental organizations and specialized outlets, including Mongabay and the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, have denounced the expansion of these companies linked into ecologically sensitive regions. Investigations confirm their presence is accelerating ecosystem degradation and fueling conflicts with indigenous communities.
Journalistic and NGO reports further indicate that these operations have spurred the opening of illegal roads in national parks. This includes Madidi, one of the planet’s richest biodiversity hotspots, home to nearly 14 percent of the world’s species. The reports warn that these clandestine routes are not isolated, they are intertwined with drug trafficking corridors and other illicit trades, consolidating a network of transnational environmental crime that extends far beyond Bolivia’s borders.
The exploitation is reinforced by Bolivia’s export market. In 2021, the country’s timber industry exported some $96 million in forest products, according to data from Climate Diplomacy and the World Bank. China ranks among the main destinations, underscoring its pivotal role in the Amazonian resource exploitation chain. Environmental organizations caution that much of this timber originates from areas with limited governmental oversight, where illegal logging and mining mutually reinforce a destructive dynamic of predation.
The environmental impact of this model became evident in 2021, when the scientific journal Nature Ecology and Evolution revealed that one in six projects financed by Chinese state banks violated natural ecosystems, a quarter intervened in protected areas, and a third invaded indigenous territories.
Alert: exporting extinction
After decades of slow recovery driven by international treaties such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the jaguar, a former symbol of power and guardian of Latin American forests, is once again a target of organized crime.
Reports indicate that the primary threat no longer comes from haute couture or sport hunting, as in the past, but from the Asian black market, where fangs, skins, and bones command exorbitant prices. A report published in the scientific journal Conservation Biology notes that between 2012 and 2018, more than 800 jaguars were hunted in Central and South America to be smuggled into China, representing only the cases intercepted by authorities.
Earth League International (ELI), an organization specializing in high-impact environmental crimes, identified Bolivia as the epicenter of this threat. The SA4 criminal network, linked to the Chinese Fujian mafia and dedicated to trafficking jaguar fangs and bones, operates there. The business, ELI warns, finds logistical support within a community of at least 8,000 Chinese citizens residing in Bolivia, which facilitates the shipment of illegal cargo to Asia.
The phenomenon is not confined to Bolivia. In Peru and Suriname, criminal networks such as SA1 and SA8, also of Chinese origin, have expanded illegal jaguar hunting, while diversifying into money laundering and other economic crimes.
Most alarming, according to ELI, is state inaction. In the case of Bolivia, the organization accuses the government of remaining silent to avoid jeopardizing diplomatic relations with China. In Peru, the picture is similarly worrying. According to the Doublethink Lab research center, the Andean country ranks fifth in the world in terms of Chinese influence. ELI data suggests that 70 percent of the timber exported from the Port of Callao to China is of illegal origin. A 2021 case involving the then governor of Madre de Dios, who was accused of leading a forest trafficking network linked to Chinese companies, revealed the deep reach of these criminal connections.
The threat to biodiversity extends beyond the jaguar. In Mexico, the totoaba, a critically endangered fish, has become the new “marine gold,” with its swim bladder fetching up to $50,000 per kilogram on the Chinese black market. Chinese networks such as M2 and M3 have been identified as leaders in this illegal activity and act as financial intermediaries between Latin American cartels and Chinese mafias, ELI reported. Meanwhile, in Colombia, 3,493 shark fins were seized at Bogotá airport in 2021 bound for Hong Kong, while indiscriminate logging continues to expand unchecked.
Adding to this complex network of wildlife trafficking is the expansion of illegal fishing driven by transnational criminal networks with links to China.
“The advancement of strategic deep-water ports such as Chancay, combined with the growth of criminal networks linked to China, portends a worrying increase in illegal fishing, with serious implications for maritime security and regional sovereignty,” Gamarra concluded.
