South America: Infrastructure and Brazilian Ambitions

Brazil and Peru recently agreed to speed up work on three major transportation infrastructure projects that will link both countries overland through the Amazon Basin and Andes Mountains. These projects are vital to Brazil's geopolitical ambitions, and form part of a larger plan to integrate all of South America's transportation systems into modern, multi-modal networks. However, integrating the transportation infrastructure also will create new opportunities for criminal enterprises in the region, and it will force the region's governments in a few years to confront clandestine and criminal activities with which they likely won't be prepared to cope.