Chacaleria is a crime film about Antonia, a self-made entrepreneur who, after losing her livelihood to the COVID-19 pandemic, wants to secure her financial future by selling and distributing alcohol illegally using a drone during Panama's nationally mandated dry law. This becomes increasingly difficult when Ronny, a by the book cop, who is forced to be corrupt, catches Antonia in the act and blackmails her into robbing a bank.
The stories of a Panamanian officer who feels betrayed by his superiors, of a young man from the neighborhood trying to prevent his friends from going out to fight, of a fisherman going through a thousand adventures trying to bury his compadre, of an imprisoned American businessman for conspiring as a CIA agent against the dictatorship and an alcoholic prostitute who cannot escape her past ... all in the middle of the Christmas preparations, just as the US invasion of Panama begins.