Clutching egg cartons on his shoulder, a young man wades precariously through a muddy river on Venezuela’s western jungle border where a Colombian shopkeeper will happily buy them up. On a peninsula jutting into the Caribbean, a fisherman sails under the cover of darkness to the nearby island of Aruba carrying everything from fish to flour. In neighboring Guyana, miners and police officers drive vehicles fueled by contraband gasoline from Venezuela. Driven by a deepening economic crisis, smuggling across Venezuela’s land and maritime borders – as well as illicit domestic trading – has accelerated to unprecedented levels and is transforming society. Although smuggling has a centuries-old history here, the socialist government’s generous subsidies and a currency collapse have given it a dramatic […]