Crackdown on treacherous Darien Gap could force migrants to risk more dangerous routes

W5 | Narco Jungle: The Death Train, Part 1 W5 follows migrants who made perilous journeys through Mexico on their way into the U.S. and Canada.

PANAMA — This is part one of a five-part series following the harrowing journeys of migrants who risk their lives crossing the Darien Gap and riding atop Mexico's notorious 'Train of Death.' W5 Investigative Unit Managing Editor and Senior Correspondent Avery Haines looks at strict new rules aimed at stemming the flood of migrants through the stretch of dense jungle.

The Darien Gap is an inhospitable jungle that begins in Colombia and ends in Panama. It’s also a human and drug smuggling route that the new president of Panama is trying to shut down.

President Jose Raul Mulino, who took office in July 2024, has implemented new security measures to deal with a humanitarian crisis in the jungle.

Five of six known routes through the Darien Gap have now been sealed off by barbed wire fencing.

The U.S. government has also pledged US$6 million to pay for deportation planes.

In the last three months, seven planeloads of migrants have been returned to Colombia, Ecuador, and India after crossing the jungle.

Last year, a staggering 520,000 migrants made the harrowing journey – most from Venezuela, a country in political and economic collapse, and increasingly from China.

With the strict new measures, migrant crossings have declined 35 per cent in the first 9 months of this year, according to official data from Panama’s National Border Service, compared to the same time frame in 2023.

But still, a quarter of a million people risked their lives in the jungle so far this year, fleeing economic collapse, political persecution and conflict in their homelands.

There are concerns the crackdown in the jungle will force migrants to take more dangerous routes, by sea.

“I think the phenomenon of migration is not going to stop, even if they put a lot of pressure,” said migrant advocate Anahi Selum. “By closing the route [migrants] are just going to go around it and come by sea. I think there will be many more deaths.”

There’s also skepticism that Panama’s plan will work in the long term because the entrance to the Darien Gap is in Colombia, and human smuggling is a lucrative business for Colombia’s largest and most feared cartel, The Gulf Clan.

In the W5 documentary Narco Jungle: The Darien Gap, a Gulf Clan member admitted that every single migrant who enters the jungle must pay a cartel tax of hundreds, even thousands of dollars, depending on the route.

Migrant smuggling through the jungle, which has historically been a cartel drug pipeline, is an industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the cartel.

In January 2024, W5 spent 6 days trekking from Colombia to Panama, documenting the plight of three families: Two young cousins who were separated from their families, a pregnant woman whose husband died on the journey, and a family of 6, all from Venezuela.

This week on CTVNews.ca and CTV National News at 11, W5 Investigative Unit Managing Editor and Senior Correspondent Avery Haines follows their harrowing journey after emerging from the jungle, including riding atop Mexico’s notorious death train and interviewing Mexican human smugglers.

On Saturday, Oct. 5, “Avery Haines Investigates” premiers at 7 p.m. on CTV, a one-hour special that includes heartwarming reunions and heartbreaking developments in their journey.