Cocaine seizures fall at major EU ports as gangs open new routes

Cocaine seizures in Europe’s biggest importing countries — the Netherlands and Belgium — have plummeted this year as tighter enforcement pushes traffickers to ports in southern and northern Europe.

Rotterdam and Antwerp, the bloc’s biggest cargo ports, seized just over half the amount of cocaine in the first half of 2024 as they did in the same period last year. Belgian customs seized 22 metric tons, down from 43, while Dutch customs seized 16 metric tons, down from 28, according to the latest figures.

Both countries have significantly stepped up efforts to intercept drugs and prevent drug-related violence, including increased police presence, more sophisticated customs equipment and collaborations with source countries in Latin America.

Drug gangs were also dealt a significant blow after authorities managed to crack an encrypted messaging network — known as Sky ECC — widely used by drug gangs in March 2021.

But its progress comes at a cost to other countries.

“The Spanish counterparts are now under increasing pressure because the criminals have decided that Antwerp and Rotterdam are perhaps less attractive now,” Kristian Vanderwaeren, the head of Belgium’s customs, told POLITICO. “They are now targeting Spain more.”

“We also see more and more cocaine seizures going to Scandinavian countries,” Bob Van den Berghe, regional coordinator for the container control program at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told POLITICO. “We see Sweden. We see Denmark.”

It’s a game of Whac-A-Mole that experts warned would happen. Cracking down on drug trafficking in one port causes gangs to divert operations to others where they encounter less resistance. And that means the drug violence that has plagued Antwerp and Rotterdam also seeps further into Europe.

In 2022, there were 81 drug-related shootings and explosions in Antwerp, as drug gang turf wars spilled onto the streets. Port workers are also being targeted. In November, two dock workers were tied up and held at knifepoint in a customs building in an alleged attempt by gangs to steal back seized drugs.

This is also why some politicians argue that only an EU-wide plan can effectively combat drug trafficking.

“These figures show that we need a European approach against drug trafficking,” Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said in a statement shared with POLITICO in response to the Belgian and Dutch customs figures.

Earlier this year, the European Commission and the then Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU launched a Port Alliance — an effort to connect governments, law enforcement, and port and shipping companies to increase port security and keep drugs out.

So far, 31 ports have joined the effort, Johansson said. “It takes a network to fight a network,” he added.

She also argues that this network needs to extend across the Atlantic. Johansson has made several visits to Latin America, along with national ministers, including Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden.

But not all drug shipments can be traced back to Latin America.

West African country Sierra Leone surprisingly topped the list of countries to which cocaine seized in Antwerp could be traced, Belgian customs said.

Perhaps it is a sign that, due to a “fixation” on Latin America, cocaine smuggled via new routes has gone undetected, Belgian customs chief Vanderwaeren admitted.

“Maybe they tried to bypass us with the West African routes,” he said.

New methods of smuggling are also booming, such as importing coca paste instead of cocaine. Coca paste is cheaper and therefore less likely to get lost in transit.

“We have detected laboratories in the European Union that specialize in processing coca paste to produce street cocaine,” Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth said in a statement shared with POLITICO.

With information from POLITICO