Jan. 30 (UPI) — Much of the discussion about China’s growing presence in Latin America focuses on trade and major infrastructure projects. Far less attention is paid to a darker dimension that is growing increasingly consequential: the expansion of Chinese transnational organized crime across the region. The criminal activities involved, particularly illegal mining, logging, fishing and wildlife trafficking, exact a heavy toll on Latin America’s natural resources, weaken institutions and create challenges that extend well beyond environmental harm.
Chinese criminal networks have become deeply embedded in illicit economies across the region. In areas where governance is weak, geography is remote and enforcement capacity remains limited, these networks exploit long-standing vulnerabilities with skill and persistence. In sectors such as illegal gold mining, they provide capital and equipment, manage logistics and secure access to export channels. The damage extends beyond environmental degradation to the consolidation of criminal ecosystems that erode the rule of law.
In the Amazon basin and other resource-rich regions, illegal mining operations linked to Chinese actors have contributed significantly to environmental destruction. These operations drive deforestation, contaminate waterways with mercury, damage fragile ecosystems and displace Indigenous communities.
Similar dynamics shape illegal logging, where timber is extracted and laundered through legal supply chains using falsified documentation. Once these products enter international markets, accountability becomes far more difficult to establish.
Illegal fishing represents another area of growing concern. Large distant-water fleets linked to Chinese organized crime have repeatedly engaged in unreported and illegal fishing along Latin America’s Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Such practices deplete fish stocks and undermine food security, while coastal states lose vital revenue and struggle to enforce maritime regulations effectively.
What makes these criminal networks particularly difficult to counter is their adaptability and capacity to operate across borders. They rely on ethnic business networks and informal financial systems, often reinforced by corruption, to shield their operations from scrutiny.
Money laundering through real estate holdings, trade-based schemes, front companies, and other financial intermediaries allows profits from environmental crimes to circulate within local economies, further entrenching illicit influence and corrupting legitimate business activity.
The consequences extend well beyond environmental damage. As criminal actors penetrate legal markets and public institutions, they weaken state authority and erode public trust. In countries already facing governance challenges, the presence of sophisticated transnational criminal organizations compounds existing vulnerabilities and obstructs long-term economic development.
For the United States and its partners, these developments demand sustained attention.
Environmental crimes linked to organized crime are not isolated local problems; they are transnational operations that distort markets, undermine institutional credibility and complicate regional cooperation. If left unaddressed, they risk locking vulnerable areas into cycles of illegality that become far more difficult to reverse than to prevent.
Effective responses must therefore be deliberate and sustained. Stronger regional cooperation and improved intelligence sharing are essential, as is targeted capacity-building for law enforcement and judicial institutions. Greater transparency in global supply chains, particularly for minerals, timber and seafood, can reduce opportunities for illicit products to enter legal markets.
Diplomatic engagement with Latin American partners should treat environmental crime as a security concern, not solely as a conservation issue.
China’s expanding global footprint presents both opportunities and risks. Ignoring the criminal dimension of that presence in Latin America would be a costly mistake. The challenge ahead is to confront organized crime decisively while strengthening institutions and protecting the natural resources on which the region’s future depends.
R. Evan Ellis is a senior non-resident associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The views expressed herein are strictly his own.