The most recent World Drug Report 2025 of the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNUD) describes Venezuela as a country free of illicit crops and with minimal mention as a route of drug trafficking to the United States and Europe.
To counteract the accusations of “narco -state”, spokesmen of the Maduro administration have resorted to this report whose analysis of Venezuela was prepared exclusively with information provided by the National Anti -Drug Superintendence itself (SUNAD).
For the World Drug Report 2025, the source cited was Carlos Javier Capote, National Guard official assigned to the National Anti -Drug Superintendence (SUNAD). In the Contemporary Issues On Drugs 2024 report, the source cited was Johanna Jaimes Valero, director of International Affairs of the Sunad. Both documents are reports from the United Nations Office.
«Those UN reports are made with information from the governments themselves. The veracity of these reports depends on the transparency of the information of each country that provides their data (…) under that methodology in Venezuela there are also no corrupt. So, I think the UN is not the best investigative entity that exists, ”explained Carlos Paparoni, lawyer and former deputy of the National Assembly.
SIN Official Data
Ronna Rizquez, research journalist and author of the book El Train de Aragua: the band that revolutionized organized crime in Latin America, explains that this type of drug reports are usually referential. “In most cases they are reports that are somehow outdated, that is, the last data that is collected for these reports is often two or more years prior to the publication of the report.”
«It is generally information that comes from official sources or states. In the case of Venezuela, as we know, there is no public information available; The official data on issues related to the Venezuelan State, much less about crime, security and drug trafficking (…) The conclusions of this report are relative and cannot be taken as absolute truths, since the information is not updated, ”explains the Venezuelan journalist.
5% of drugs that arrive in the US move through Venezuela
The World Drug Report 2025 indicates that 87 % of the cocaine flow towards the US is mobilized by the Colombian and Ecuadorian Pacific, while 8 % crosses the Caribbean and the Guajira Peninsula. Just 5 % of the traffic would try to pass through Venezuelan territory. In addition, the UN plays the United States again as the largest consumer market and warns about the synthetic opioid crisis.
Along the same lines, the European Drug Agency stressed that Spain made in 2024 its greatest seizure of cocaine, 13 tons, in a shipment from the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil, without connection with Venezuela.
How does the UN obtain information
The World Drug Report compiles statistics from various sources. These include official questionnaires (Annual Report Questionnaire, ARQ), through which governments annually report data on seizures, convictions, consumption and laboratories destroyed. Satellite images and remote sensing techniques are also used, mainly applied in countries with illicit crops such as Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan or Myanmar.
The report incorporates national surveys on drug use and public health, as well as information from international agencies such as Europol, Interpol, OAS/CICAD, WHO, World Bank and the World Customs Organization.
When the data is insufficient or doubtful, the UN performs a triangulation of information, contrasting figures with seizures in receiving countries and using drug flow estimation models.
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