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Cocaine's Influence on Nicaragua's Miskito Coast

Over the last 10 years, Central America has become a major transshipment corridor for cocaine smuggled out of Colombia to the United States. Some 80 percent of the illegal cargo is carried by speedy drug boats that race along the coastline heading north to Mexico.

Nowhere is the influence of trafficking stronger than along the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where cocaine is transforming the social fabric of traditional culture. NPR's John Burnett reports.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.
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