One of the most important developments that has had, in recent years, an immediate impact on the "map of drug trafficking" in Colombia, is represented by the transition from a top and unitary structure to a criminal organization chart equally of a "pyramidal" character, but which it is distributed in many branches.
The dismantling of the "Colombian mega-criminal apparatus" that was established over the decades and subsequently crystallized, following the centralization work carried out by the "criminal genius" of Pablo Escobar, led to the birth of independent criminal micro-organizations; this new status quo of drug trafficking in Colombia has made it much more complicated by the Colombian institutions to combat and repress organized crime.
The new mapping of crime in Colombia is rather articulated and changeable, and if, on the one hand, the "old drug trafficking cartels" have become more permeable and identifiable by the magistrates and the police, on the other, the " drug clan "of new or recent creation, even if they can be weakened or destroyed by the state, however, they can be reborn through" satellite clans ", which take possession of the vacated position, resuming the illicit activities of the annihilated clans. This modus operandi is developing exponentially not only in Colombia, but also in Mexico. Colombia - like Mexico itself -, especially in recent years, has proved to be a land of conquest for organized micro-crime, fueling the war between gangs; in this way, the institutions are unable to predict the moves of drug traffickers on the territorial drug chessboard. For this reason, there is a risk of "criminal saturation" of the territory, as the suppliers, distributors and the Colombian drug traffickers themselves come to represent "local criminal bodies", in a sort of geolocation of the territory and hypertrophic control of streets and neighborhoods by local criminals, who are even more ruthless and unpredictable than the great drug lords of the past.
In Colombia we find ourselves in the presence of a "new generation" of drug traffickers: this is the "fourth generation", which currently controls a large part of the Colombian coca market, after the death, in 1993, of Pablo Escobar, nicknamed and considered the "King of cocaine", because he had no rivals in his field. After Escobar's death, the new narcos take the name of "Los Invisibles", which are more cautious and less identifiable, managing only drug trafficking routes and contacts with customers, even going beyond national borders. These "drug cartels" avoid ostentation by using money instead of lead.
As can be seen from the Colombian criminal framework outlined in this research contribution, it is not easy for the State to fight drug trafficking, since in the Colombian social and territorial reality there is the presence of multiple "criminal codes" that are difficult to identify: on the one hand there are local criminal groups, which make their way with machine guns, pistols, rifles and machetes, among the alleys and streets of the "jungle-cities" of Colombia, to impose the law of the strongest, on the other hand there are criminal ramifications on the Colombian territory that have replaced the brutality of some top drug clans of the past, with refined operations of money laundering, the result of the illicit proceeds of drug trafficking, making everything more fluid and immediate, through modern and sophisticated laundering technologies.