Uruguay faces an increasing threat from organized crime

A series of recent criminal activities suggests that organized crime has set its sights on Uruguay and exposes vulnerabilities in what has historically been one of the most prosperous and well-governed countries in the region.

On September 25, Uruguayan authorities arrested three suspected members of the Manos gang in the Uruguayan department of Artigas, which borders the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The Manos are one of the most powerful criminal groups in Rio Grande do Sul. Authorities claim the group is expanding across the border to control local drug trafficking in northern Uruguay.

That same day, six people died in a deliberate fire in a Uruguayan prison. Although the incident remains under investigation, authorities say it was the result of inadequate supervision by prison staff. It took place in the same module of the same prison – and appears to have used the same methods – as a similar deadly attack carried out in late December 2023.

A few days earlier, an operation that seized millions of dollars worth of cocaine confirmed that Uruguay’s role in the international cocaine trade has expanded.

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Uruguay has had functioning institutions for decades, with top scores in democratic institutions, GDP per capita and perception of corruption in Latin America.

But in recent years there has been an increasing number of criminal activities. Murders have remained high since peaking in 2018, and tons of cocaine have traveled undetected across the country, only to be discovered by authorities in Europe.

Although major criminal groups have yet to gain a strong hold in Uruguay, the country offers several opportunities for organized crime to flourish.

Uruguay’s prisons

Uruguay’s prisons are increasingly overcrowded and less well maintained; characteristics that organized crime has exploited to recruit and expand in neighboring countries.

The number of prisoners in Uruguay has risen steadily over the past fifteen years, from 8,324 in 2009 to 15,767 in 2024. The correctional system is currently at 121% capacity, making Uruguay’s incarceration rate the tenth highest in the world. Meanwhile, spending per prisoner has fallen year over year since 2019, government data shows.

By 2023, 40% of the incarcerated population faced ‘insufficient conditions for social reintegration’, while 43% faced ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’. The percentage of the population that falls into this last category has been increasing since 2019.

“We are facing a situation of deterioration and overcrowding in prisons that an organization like the PCC could use to its advantage,” Lucas Silva, an author and journalist who focuses on Uruguayan organized crime, told InSight Crime.

In neighboring Brazil, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) was formed in a similarly overcrowded and poorly managed prison in São Paulo following a prison massacre at the hands of authorities. The group built their numbers in prison, eventually taking to the streets and expanding internationally.

In Paraguay, the PCC fought for control of prisons with rival gangs such as the Rotela Clan, taking advantage of overcrowded prisons and outnumbered and corrupt guards to create insecurity and recruit new members.

And while the PCC raid in Paraguay caused much bloodshed, a similar action in Uruguay could fly under the radar due to the lack of major gangs in Uruguay.

“The PCC knows it has no rival here, so it doesn’t need to enter in a spectacular or belligerent way,” said Nicolás Centurión, Uruguay crime watcher and analyst at the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (Centro Latinoamericano de Análisis Estratégico). . – CLAE)

Criminal networks behind bars

Well-connected prisoners linked to major organized crime groups in Uruguay’s prisons have likely used the country’s prisons to build their international criminal networks.

Although major gangs have not yet taken over any prisons in Uruguay, members of powerful organized crime groups have long been imprisoned in the country. Some experts believe that these connections helped propel the criminal career of Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset to the intercontinental level.

“They sent him to a wing of the Libertad prison that housed the main international drug traffickers who had fallen in Uruguay. There were people from the PCC, Paraguayan drug traffickers, people from the ‘Ndrangheta, from the Balkan mafia,’ Silva said.

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Marset started out as a small-time drug dealer and was arrested in 2013 for trafficking marijuana. Although he had no ties to the international cocaine trade before prison, he quickly built an international operation after his release.

According to Centurión, shortly after his release from prison, Marset went to Bolivia to meet with cocaine producers. He then set up shop in Paraguay and climbed the criminal ladder. “This shows that the key was given to him in prison – he made contacts from within and was very smart to be able to survive and then move to other countries with a clear purpose,” he said.

Rocco Morabito, a leader of the Italian mafia ‘Ndrangheta, was jailed in Uruguay in 2017 but escaped in 2019 along with an alleged member of the Mexican criminal organization Cuinis. It is believed that Morabito established the link between the PCC in South America and the ‘Ndrangheta in Europe, coordinating the massive shipments of cocaine between continents.

Uruguay’s changing role

Uruguay has taken on an increasingly important role in the international cocaine trade as transnational organized crime groups look to expand in the country.

Uruguay’s capital and main port, Montevideo, has become a major transit point for cocaine to Europe and Africa, as cocaine production and consumption increase and drug traffickers adapt and expand their routes.

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Since at least 2019, shipping containers passing through the country’s waterways have been loaded with drugs elsewhere, often in Paraguay, and passed through Montevideo, hidden in legitimate shipments of products like flour and soy. Partners in Europe would then unload the drugs for distribution to dealers.

But the recent operation on September 25 revealed the drug was being stored and loaded onto boats in Uruguay’s coastal departments of Montevideo, Canelones and San José. An earlier operation in August took out a network made up of Uruguayans and Colombians who were allegedly storing cocaine in Montevideo to be loaded into shipping containers bound for Europe.

And while Uruguay has a relatively limited consumer market, violence has increased in some neighborhoods of Montevideo as small clans struggle to control the small-scale drug trade.

“At the national level we have two very clear phenomena. On the one hand, the rise of human trafficking at the borders and port of Montevideo and on the other hand, the increase in violence in the neighborhoods,” said Silva. “What remains to be investigated is how the two phenomena are linked: large-scale drug trafficking and neighborhood violence.”

Uruguay’s changing role in the international drug trade has raised concerns that the country could suffer a similar fate to Ecuador. In 2015, Ecuador had a lower murder rate than Uruguay and the third lowest murder rate in Latin America, at 6 per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2023, it had the highest rate in South America, at 45 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The violence closely followed a sharp increase in the flow of cocaine through Ecuador. As the country’s corrupt penitentiary system became severely overcrowded, gangs took over parts of the prisons and violence broke out both inside and outside the prisons, as rival groups waged war over drug trafficking territory and smuggling routes.

However, Emiliano Rojid, a criminologist at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, said Uruguay is still very different from Ecuador: “Uruguay does not have as attractive a location as Ecuador, and it has much stronger institutions,” he said. But, he added, “(Uruguay) as a country is not exempt from what is happening in the region and from the power of the resources that move drugs at the international level.”

Featured image: A guard stands guard outside the Uruguayan Santiago Vázquez prison. Credit: Uruguay’s Ministry of the Interior