Cartel Secrets: Jungle Money Laundering - Kendra McSweeney

The drug trade causes so much harm to people all over the world, but particularly in the areas that are shipment routes between drug producers and their consumers. As drugs move northward from South America toward the United States, the collateral damage is also extended to Central America's forests and the plants and animals that live there. Kendra McSweeney says that drug traffickers now use remote forest Honduras and Guatemala as a way to launder their money: they bribe local officials to buy and clear large swaths of pristine jungle. The traffickers then sell the cleared land to plantation owners who might be looking for extra land to grow their crops, lending their wealth a veil of legitimacy.