Miami benefits from Latin America’s rising crime

Caracas, Venezuela
Caracas, Venezuela

South Florida is benefiting from a rise in violent crime in Latin America, WLRN reported.

While the region enjoys one of the world’s fastest rates of economic growth, it is simultaneously burdened with one of the worst waves of violent crime in its history, the public radio station reported.

Enter Miami.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

The city and surrounding area’s shopping centers, casinos, hospitality sector and condo developers have benefited not only from Latin America’s burgeoning wealth but also from its runaway murder rates. Fleeing the deadly dispute among drug traffickers over terrain from Mexico to Colombia, more wealthy Latin Americans are landing on Miami’s shores.

“Condos in Miami are being snapped up by people from Venezuela, where Caracas is really one of the most violent cities in the hemisphere now, and people from Brazil, Mexico,” NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro told WLRN. “They’re able to buy them because the economies in those places are doing so well, but they’re leaving to Miami because the criminality [back home] is simply so bad.” [WLRN]Emily Schmall