The expansion of Chinese organized crime in Latin America

The opening of the Chinese economy, the increase in domestic corruption and the global expansion of the Strip and the Route initiative have allowed the international expansion of Chinese organized crime groups, also in Latin America.

For example, in December 2024, Liu Bitong, a fugitive since 2017, was arrested in the Brazilian state of Roraima, on the border with Venezuela. The man, identified as the leader of the Bitong Group, who is believed to be a branch of the Chinese triads, the Mafia of the Asian country, directed an extortion plot in the central region of San Pablo, mainly against Chinese merchants in the vicinity of March 25 street. It is suspected that the group killed three merchants who did not meet their demands.

«Chinese organized crime groups are sophisticated and have a great vision for business, focusing more and more on highly profitable business lines such as traffic of people, bets and online game, and traffic of illegal or restricted chemical precursors,» he explains to Dialogue Martin Purbrick, an expert in corruption and organized crime in Asia.

Synthetic drug production

In December 2024, the Brazilian police operation Heisenberg discovered a criminal network that produced and sold methamphetamine from San Pablo. The group was mainly composed of foreigners, the majority Chinese, who, according to the police, had learned to manufacture the drug of their Mexican members, from Jalisco, where the New Generation Jalisco Cartel operates (CJNG).

«Drug trafficking has become an important business line for Chinese organized crime groups, thanks to the wide Chinese diaspora worldwide, which can be used for the movement of people, products and funds,» says Purbrick.

The official opening in November 2024 of the Port of Chancay in Peru, operated by the Chinese Logistics Cosco company, according to experts runs the risk of facilitating and increasing traffic to the region of chemical precursors for the production of synthetic drugs, as well as finished products, such as methamphetamines and synthetic opiates, from fentanyl to nitazen.

According to a report by the International Coalition against Illicit Economies (ICAIE), more than 80 percent of the chemical precursors used in the region originate in three provinces of China. «It is very likely that many of these products can enter the region through Chancay under the protection of the Chinese state,» said the ICAIE.

Marijuana production

Chinese criminal groups in Latin America are expanding in traffic, but also in the production of marijuana, generally cultivated in large closed spaces, illuminated day and night. A series of police operations in Chile have discovered that Chinese immigrants worked illegally to the country by Chinese criminal organizations.

«Our investigations showed the cooperation of Chileans (…) in cases of migrants traffic. Regarding drug trafficking, the criminal structure tended to be more exclusive and promoted participation its countrymen (Chinese),» Luis Toledo, former head of the National Anti -Drug Unit of the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office, told Insight Crime, an organization that studies organized crime in Latin America.

According to the authorities, at the head of the production of marijuana in the Latin American country are families of the Clan Bang from the province of Fujian, in southern China. In 2021, the Chilean police seized 26 of its production centers and USD 1 million in cash. According to the Chilean newspaper The thirdwhile the Bang clan sells its marijuana through Chilean traffickers, you buy ketamine and ecstasy to sell in their karaokes in Chile.

“Not all Chinese criminals belong to triad. Some can be structured in clans, forming a collaborative criminal company with people from the same area and environment. A good example is the province of Fujian, which for hundreds of years have produced tens of thousands of emigrants throughout Asia, and many to America, in search of a better life. The term Fujian band is often used to refer to the criminals of the province, but There is no single band with this name, but several criminal organizations in the province that use this appellation, ”says Purbrick A Dialogue.

Organized crime groups and Chinese triads usually base their cooperation on common ties of geographical origin, clan and language links. Many of them only speak Fujian’s dialect, more difficult to translate, for fear of listening. «When we find interpreters, some leave because they feel threatened or because they fear reprisals from the organization,» Toledo explains to Insight Crime.

Extortion and game

Chinese mafia groups make their presence in the region feel through various illicit activities, such as people trafficking and extortion. In Argentina, in November 2024, three Chinese were arrested for demanding large sums of money from other Chinese supermarket owners.

In San Pablo, Brazil, according to data collected by the news site Metroples15 cases were produced between 2023 and 2024, compared to the 21 registered in the previous nine years. For the authorities, however, the real number of victims is even greater, because many of them do not go to the police for fear of reprisals. Merchants are exploited by extortion, but also used for money laundering plots. In Brazil, one of the main criminal groups, the first command in the capital (PCC), not only uses these Chinese networks, but also offers them the services of their Fintech for the payment of drugs.

“It’s a great HUB (center), a large ecosystem, not necessarily of hierarchical groups with each other, but that benefit from the same structures, both to circulate resources and to have a level of protection so as not to be disturbed, ”he explains to Metroples Prosecutor Fábio Bechara, of the Special Force for the Combat of Organized Crime (Gaeco), of the Public Ministry of San Pablo.

The illegal game, both real and online, is also used more and more as a form of money laundering. In January 2025, in Chile, a police operation discovered how a Chinese trafficker who received methamphetamine by mail from Spain had an illegal casino at his home in Santiago. In 2023, always in Santiago, a Chinese was killed in an illegal Chinese casino. Also in Brazil the Chinese expansion in this sector has become a problem.

«It is estimated that at least 40 percent of the game on-line In the country it operates illegally. Actually, most sites are managed from China. They have found here a fertile land to exploit and are operating very strongly, ”said Magnho José, president of the Brazilian Legal Game Institute, to the Specialized Website of the Sector Future Igaming.

Although the Brazilian Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL) has so far blocked 11 641 illegal sites, those responsible for the legal sector report that many others are appearing, mostly located in China through the use of VPN, virtual private networks used to transmit data through public networks anonymously and safely. The VPNs allow Chinese criminal groups to exploit encrypted communications and hide the origin of the server, which further hinders the blockade of these sites.

«The illegal game and sports bets in Asia have been a key activity for Chinese organized crime groups due to the margin of benefits and relatively low operational risks,» says Purbrick. According to the expert, «the benefits of sports bets and illegal online game are so high that they have financed and continue to finance the expansion of Chinese organized crime groups in other regions, such as Latin America.»

Chinese criminal groups are, without a doubt, a threat to the region that requires an increasingly transnational response.

(Originally published in the magazine Américas dialoguefrom the southern command of the US).