Behind loom vast warehouses and dozens of port cranes, while on the street, shop owners unload merchandise from shipping containers.
Established in 1948, the world's second-largest free-trade zone was envisioned as a wholesale redistribution centre for Latin America and the Caribbean, but it has become a global hub of counterfeiting, contraband and cocaine. In November, Europol arrested 49 members of a super-cartel centred on Dubai and accounting for a third of Europe's cocaine supply.
One of those arrested was Anthony Martínez Meza, son of a director of the Colón Free Trade Zone, and suspected of organising shipments from Colón.
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