Smuggling is an old phenomenon that acquires relevance within the globalized world due to the commercial levels reached by the States and due to the effects on macro and microeconomic variables. In Colombia, although there are regulations that regulate the procedures to follow to carry out imports and exports (Decree 2685 of 1999, 390 of 2016 and 349 of 2018), there are distortions and bad practices that affect the system, generating unemployment, lower business productivity, money laundering. of assets, corruption, crime, among others. In this context, this article seeks to analyze the behavior of technical smuggling from 2000 to 2018 and its correlation with variables such as imports, unemployment, the growth of the Gross Domestic Product, and Colombia's free trade agreement with the European Union. The results suggest that the levels of smuggling tend to increase as international trade also increases and that this has immediate effects on the economic variables analyzed
