Most available evidence shows that Venezuela is a transit country for some cocaine and other drugs, but only a small share of the drugs reaching the United States or global markets actually move through Venezuela, and it does not produce fentanyl in any meaningful way.

Quick Scoop: Core Facts

  • Venezuela has for years been a significant transit hub for cocaine leaving Colombia and heading to the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, and, to a lesser extent, the U.S.
  • Estimates in the late 2000s suggested roughly 10% of U.S.-bound cocaine shipments passed via Venezuela, and about a quarter of South American cocaine at that time was believed to transit Venezuelan territory.
  • Recent specialist fact‑checks and drug‑trade analyses conclude that Venezuela today accounts for only a small fraction of the cocaine that ends up in the U.S., with most U.S‑bound cocaine now moving via Pacific routes through countries like Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico.

What “drugs from Venezuela” really means

When people ask “how much drugs come from Venezuela,” they are usually mixing up three different ideas:

  1. Production vs. transit
    • Venezuela is not a major producer of cocaine, heroin, or fentanyl; coca is overwhelmingly grown and processed in neighboring Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia.
 * Venezuela’s role is mainly as a corridor: drugs enter from Colombia, move overland or by river/air, and then leave by sea or air toward the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe.
  1. Share of global trade
    • A U.S. congressional report once estimated that cocaine routed through Venezuela reached about 17% of the world cocaine trade around 2007, and roughly 25% of South American cocaine transited Venezuela by 2010–2015.
 * Against a global flow of thousands of tons of cocaine per year, that still makes Venezuela important regionally but not the dominant global channel.
  1. Role in U.S. drug supply
    • UN and U.S. government‑linked analyses indicate that most cocaine reaching the U.S. now travels via Pacific maritime routes and Central America/Mexico, not via Venezuela.
 * Recent fact‑checks explicitly conclude that Venezuela accounts for only a _minor_ percentage of illicit drugs (especially fentanyl) entering the U.S., contradicting political claims that frame Venezuela as the main source of the crisis.

What kinds of drugs are involved?

  • Cocaine:
    • Main substance transiting Venezuela, largely originating in Colombian coca regions and then exported onward.
* Shipments go by speedboat, container shipping, small aircraft, and overland routes to Caribbean islands, Central America, and West Africa/Europe.
  • Marijuana and other drugs:
    • Marijuana from Colombia is also moved through western Venezuelan states toward Caribbean markets, though in far smaller volumes than cocaine.
* There is some trafficking of synthetic drugs and precursors, but Venezuela is not a major global manufacturing hub for synthetics.
  • Fentanyl:
    • Detailed reporting and narcotics‑expert assessments state that Venezuela does not meaningfully produce fentanyl, and attempts to tie the U.S. fentanyl epidemic directly to “fentanyl from Venezuela” are described as misleading or politically motivated.
* Synthetic opioids entering the U.S. are mainly linked to precursor supply chains and production networks in Asia and Mexico, not Venezuela.

Why the numbers are hard to pin down

  • Hidden economy: Trafficking volumes are estimated using seizures, intelligence, and modeling; traffickers constantly change routes, so precise “what percent of all drugs” numbers come with wide uncertainty bands.
  • Political narratives:
    • Governments sometimes emphasize or downplay Venezuela’s role to justify sanctions, military operations, or diplomatic pressure, which can distort the public debate.
* Independent fact‑checkers and research NGOs generally converge on the view that Venezuela is an important _regional_ trafficking node but not the main driver of U.S. overdose trends.

Bottom line

  • Some cocaine and other illicit drugs do move through Venezuela, and at certain points in the 2000s and early 2010s, it was a major transit hub in the hemisphere.
  • Current evidence indicates that:
    • Venezuela handles a minor share of the drugs reaching the U.S. compared with Pacific/Central American routes.
* It does **not** meaningfully produce fentanyl, and claims that “these drugs from Venezuela” are the main cause of U.S. overdose deaths are not supported by specialist data.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.