"there's no good reason to travel this area that can easily be avoided by land or sea" - everywhere can easily be avoided by land or sea, guess I should put my bike in the shed and forget it. If it was easy then it wouldn't be an adventure. I understand what you're saying but people do cross the gap and will continue to whether you tell them not to or not. People with helpful information should give the op not us (yes, me included)

For information, the OP is not travelling by motorcycle, he will be on foot AFAIK.

For sure a dangerous area, nobody says otherwise. It is however a migrant route as highlighted by this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzRcf1MTHfU

Desperate people with no preparation and no equipment use this route into the Americas. That said, the OP is planning on taking a different route, I have no idea if that is also a human trafficking route.

Is it safe? No.
Are people smugglers reputable people to deal with? No.
Is it the best way to get from Colombia to Panama? No.
Is it totally impossible, or guaranteed death? Clearly not.

EO

Go for, I went through with a motorcycle and team in 2016 as did Wayne and his team 2 years later.

My blog is on Facebook at The Darien Gap 2015/16 and Wayne's is: WTRE

Feel to reach out to me with questions or to Wayne.

Sounds like quite the adventure. Not sure i'd be bold enough to do it myself, but i would love to see if it's possible nowadays. For far too long, overlanders have had to either cut their trips short or spend thousands on shipping their vehicles over the Darien gap.