Colombia’s illegal cocaine trade generated more revenue than the country’s oil exports in 2024, becoming its largest source of foreign currency, according to a new report.
The report by Valor Público, a research center at EAFIT University in Medellín, found that cocaine production and trafficking brought Colombian criminal organizations about $16.5 billion in 2024, equivalent to 4.4% of the country’s gross domestic product.
That amount exceeded Colombia’s crude oil exports, which generated about $15 billion in 2024. Oil has long been one of the main pillars of Colombia’s formal economy.
The research, led by Santiago Tobón, a security expert and director of Valor Público at EAFIT University, and economist Daniel Mejía said the cocaine economy’s weight in Colombia has tripled over the past decade.
The study found that cocaine revenue also surpassed other traditional legal exports, including coal, which generated $7.1 billion, as well as coffee, gold and flowers.
En 2024, la producción y el tráfico de cocaína le dejaron cerca de US$16.500 millones a las organizaciones criminales colombianas, casi 4,4% del PIB.
Supera lo que Colombia exporta en petróleo, su mayor producto legal. Nueva nota con @DanielMejiaL pic.twitter.com/QV4Nr2JZ03— Santiago Tobón (@SantiagoTobon) June 19, 2026
The authors said the shift was not driven by higher domestic cocaine prices, but by an unprecedented increase in production efficiency in coca-growing areas and drug laboratories.
“It is not that cocaine has become more expensive in the domestic market. On the contrary. What we are seeing is a massive increase in the volume of pure production,” Tobón said.
The report said technical improvements in the chemical processing of coca leaves and maturation of more productive plants pushed Colombia’s potential cocaine output to record highs.
“Cocaine production went from less than 300 tons in 2013 to nearly 3,000 [tons] in 2024, while the price received by Colombian organizations remained relatively stable,” the report said.
The surge in supply flooded international routes and more than offset any decline in local prices caused by oversupply, researchers said.
At the same time, Colombia’s formal oil industry declined because of lower domestic production and instability in international crude prices, accelerating the point at which cocaine revenue overtook oil exports.
The report also found that cocaine brings Colombia about five times more revenue than illegal gold. But the two illicit economies function differently.
Gold is sold at a single global price, with little added value afterward, and much of the money remains in the country. Cocaine gains most of its value abroad, through transport and street-level distribution, which Colombian groups control only in part.
The report said Colombian criminal organizations also have strengthened their control over transnational logistics. They no longer limit themselves to selling coca paste in rural coca-producing areas. Instead, they coordinate transport, concealment and shipment from Colombian seaports to high-value markets in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.
By taking on the risks of export, the groups multiply their profits. A kilogram of cocaine that leaves a Colombian laboratory at about $1,400 can reach a wholesale value of more than $40,000 once it arrives in Europe, according to the report.
The researchers said the shift has produced what they call “criminal governance” and stable oligopolies. Large groups, including dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Clan del Golfo, often prefer to negotiate invisible borders and regulate markets rather than engage in costly wars.
The result, the report said, is a dangerous paradox for the state: regions with stable homicide rates, but under quiet, extensive and highly profitable criminal control.
