#open_empowerment
Regional economies are being transformed as the local goes global. Small and medium-sized enterprises and rural farmers leverage cyberspace to reach global markets. Coffee beans are now directly sold to cafés in the north but so too are cocaine, marijuana, and human beings. The virtual and real economies have blurred. Latin America’s regional narco-economy threatens to colonize and supplant the real economy. Criminals – individuals, groups, gangs and drug cartels – have migrated into cyberspace to coordinate profitable, and often violent, activities, from identity theft, kidnapping and extortion through to gang recruitment, intimidation of authorities, recruitment of hitmen, and the silencing of citizens.