Evan Ellis reported for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on the remarks by participants in the 3rd Regional Network Meeting for Crime Analysts (RNA) held in Santo Domingo, 24 to 27 November 2025.
The event brought together crime analysts from across the Caribbean, including the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France, to discuss challenges posed by organized crime in the region.
Ellis reported that the 3rd RNA was important in calling attention to the profound problems of drug flows and other organized violence in the region. It also highlighted the important progress that is being made and helped to advance collaboration between governments and other stakeholders. The positive contributions of the event highlighted that successful collaboration in combatting organized crime in the region involves not only the governments and citizens of the region and the United States, but also other countries with a presence and stakes in what happens in the region, including the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and France, among others.
The event was “as surreal as it was productive.” He mentioned that senior police, military, and other officials discussing illicit flows of drugs, money, and people through the Caribbean, even as the U.S. military was conducting lethal interdictions against suspected drug boats, with widespread speculation that the United States could take decisive military action in Venezuela.
He said his visit to participate in the event also coincided with a separate visit by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to Santo Domingo, where he met with Dominican President Luis Abinader and signed agreements allowing the United States to use the country’s main international airport, Aeropuerto de las Americas, as well as the San Isidro military air base for counterdrug operations. Separately, as the RNA event unfolded, General Daniel Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Trinidad and Tobago, while US President Donald Trump announced possible talks with Nicholas Maduro.
Nevertheless, Ellis also reported:
“Colleagues consulted at the event indicated that US interdiction operations had caused a decrease in narco boats from Venezuela and had caused fishing vessels, including those smuggling persons and not just drugs, to stay away from the Venezuelan coast. Other islands represented at the event reported significant drops in narco boat transits. Nonetheless, many at the event did not anticipate a significant long-term impact from US military operations on the overall volume of drug flows, noting that it did not appear that the organizations sending the drugs themselves were being attritted. They noted that most of the large drug shipments sent out of the region move in cargo containers, charter vessels, or commercial flights, and that most shipments going through the Caribbean were bound for Europe, not the United States. “
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CSIS
9 December 2025