Landing on Water: Air Interdiction, Drug-Trafficking Displacement, and Violence in the Brazilian Amazon

Leila Pereira (), Rafael Pucci () and Rodrigo Soares

No 2025_03, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: We study a Force-down/Shoot-down intervention in Brazil that led cocaine traffickers to shift from air to river routes. Using data on cocaine production, homicides, and the network of rivers in the Amazon, we provide evidence that violence increased in municipalities along river routes originating from Andean producing countries after the policy. We also show that, during the same period, violence in these municipalities became more responsive to cocaine production in origin countries. We document an instance of crime displacement over the three-dimensional space, involving sophisticated adaptations from criminals regarding transportation technologies, with dramatic side-effects for local populations.

Keywords: Cocaine; Illegal markets; Crime displacement; Violence; Brazil; Amazon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K42 O54 Q34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-04-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-big, nep-dev, nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.repec.eae.fea.usp.br/documentos/Pereira_Pucci_Soares_03WP.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
Working Paper: Landing on Water: Air Interdiction, Drug-Trafficking Displacement, and Violence in the Brazilian Amazon (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spa:wpaper:2025wpecon3

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Pedro Garcia Duarte ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).