Drug Trade a Threat to Third World, U.N. Says
Narcotics traffickers are turning their attention from affluent consumer countries to the developing world, the head of a U.N. anti-drugs agency said Friday.
“Latin America could explode. We are in a situation that is very close to total collapse,” Giuseppe di Gennaro, executive director of the U.N. Fund for Drug Abuse Control, said.
Di Gennaro, speaking at a news conference during a two-day trip to Finland, said problems were acute in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia where officials began a crackdown on drug barons last August.
India could also be a target for the illicit narcotics trade which Di Gennaro said was currently worth $500 billion a year. African nations also were threatened, he added.
Drug dealers had targeted more affluent consumer countries but “this is no longer the case and we have high consumption also in what were previously producer countries,” he said.
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