- The unfolding human tragedyalong the US Southern border

is also getting attention fromtransnational drug cartels.

CBN News contributingcorrespondent, Chuck Holton reports,

they're taking advantage of the chaos.

- [Chuck] Every day, boats arrive here

in the tiny Colombianborder town of Capurganá.

But these aren't tourists,

they're migrants fromall across the world.

- Most of them are fromAfrica, Pakistan, India,

and Haiti and some Cubans.

It's a humanitarian crisis.

- [Chuck] What should be anout of the way fishing village

has become the last off-rampon a human trafficking highway

that plunges right throughthe forbidden Darien Gap.

These migrants aren'tcustomers, they're products,

and their desire to make it to the US

means big profits for the smugglers

who send them into the jungle.

- I don't like to talktoo loudly around here.

But basically that's what they do.

They pay the young kidshere to be the mules,

and they take them over the mountains

or through the, youknow, to the sandblast.

- [Chuck] But there'sanother commodity here,

that's even more profitable, cocaine.

This country has alwaysbeen the number one exporter

of this illicit drug,

but the amount beinggrown in Columbia today

is near an all time high.

- With President Uribe, we gotas small as 40,000 hectares.

With president Santoswho sold to the world

that he was the peace maker,

we're getting to 300,000 hectares.

- [Chuck] Eradication effortshaven't been as effective

in recent years due toconcerns about the health risks

of spraying Coca fields from the air.

So Colombia has had to resort to methods

which are less effectiveand much more dangerous.

- We have 16 soldiers, policemen

and eradicators killed by mines,

because the guerrilla putmines everywhere around.

- So I wanted to try andtrack this group of migrants

we watched go into the DarienGap on the Colombian side

when they came out the other end.

So I took a quick flight to Panama,

and now I'm driving down tothe Darien Gap on this side

to try to meet them.

And I think I figured outhow these drug runners

are taking advantageof the flow of migrants

to move their product North.

What they do is get local Colombian guys

to put on backpacks full of cocaine

and then they salt themin with the migrants.

That's because the migrants are getting

preferential treatment

from immigration officials at the border.

See the border is actually closed,

but Colombian immigrationofficials told me,

they're being instructedto look the other way

when the migrants come through.

And so in that way, theseguys can get their drugs North

without being stopped at the border.

I made it to the camp wherethe migrants were being kept

but wasn't allowed to enterbecause of COVID restrictions.

I did manage to get through on the phone

to a 16 year old Haitianmigrant named Madesi.

(speaking in a foreign language)

- [Translator] Many people died.

One woman drowned, and twoother men lost their wives.

Many people died.

- [Chick] In, all 12 ofthe 70 or so migrants

we witnessed at the start oftheir journey did not survive

including this 10 month oldbaby who succumbed to dysentery.

In addition Madesi toldme the entire group

was robbed at gunpoint,

and at least a dozen womenwere raped by cartel members.

But the migrants keep coming.

Locals say the number is up four fold

in the last two months.

The flow of cocaine iskeeping pace as well.

Panama seized more than 1.5tons a week for the past year.

But while the cartels

have to evade authoritiesto move their drugs,

the flow of people is much easier,

because the migrants getsupport from local governments

as they transit central America.

Victor Avila is a former ICE agent.

- The cartels have taken over.

We used to have the human traffickers

and the human smugglersand the drug traffickers.

That no longer exists,

it's now all the cartels.

You will encounter the cartels,

you will have to pay the peso, the plaza,

the quota to them,

whether you're going toturn yourself in or not.

These people are paying3,500, $4,000 a head

to even turn themselves into seek asylum.

- [Chuck] So whetherit's Haitians or heroin,

Cubans or cocaine

the narcos are getting rich either way.

From Panama, I'm ChuckHolton for CBN News.