Most people view of the Caribbean and its over 7,000 individual islands is it's a tropical paradise of blue seas, sandy beaches and palm trees and to some extent this is very true. What most tourist and visitors don't see or are prevented from seeing is the real situation in the Caribbean.The Caribbean has always been a haven for smugglers and pirates and still is today. The islands have always traded among themselves and many of what are class as drug trafficking routes today were just trade routes 100 years ago or more. Where contraband use to be rum and tobacco it has now been replaced by drugs, firearms and dirty money.