Containers flowing through global logistics hubs bring illegal drugs into Europe. As a result, over the last ten years, the quantity of drugs seized in the European Union has increased considerably while the number of seizures across most drug types has decreased.
That’s according to the European Union’s policing agency Europol and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) have brought out their latest study, titled EU Drug Markets: Key insights for policy and practice. The EU retail drug market is estimated to have a minimum retail value of at least 31 billion euros a year, making it a major source of income for organised crime.
The report notes the ‘exploitation of key logistical infrastructure, particularly seaports. Criminal networks infiltrate these hubs of trade and transportation, turning them into
conduits for unprecedented drug flows’. Besides logistics, the report points to the human side, ‘recruitment of young people by criminal networks’. “Vulnerable youth are lured or forced to partake in dangerous and illicit activities by criminal organisations. This jeopardises their future opportunities and perpetuates a cycle of crime and violence,” the report states. The criminal networks ‘constantly adapt to external shocks and increasingly use specialist criminal service providers …. they also increasingly coordinate their illicit drug trafficking activities from outside the European Union’.
The largest drug in the ‘market ecosystem’ is cannabis, closely followed by cocaine. Availability remains high across the main drugs used in Europe, evidenced by the large and in some cases increasing quantities that continue to be seized in the European Union, the report says. It notes also ‘new psychoactive substances, often of high potency or purity’. Industrial-scale production of cannabis and synthetic drugs, such as amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA and cathinones, takes place in the EU for domestic and international markets.
Some countries are ‘experiencing unprecedented levels of drug market-related violence, often related to the cocaine and cannabis markets. This appears to be concentrated in distribution hubs and in competitive retail markets,’ the report says. Drug-related corruption also targets those with access to key infrastructure, such as those working in logistics hubs, the legal profession and the financial sector. Corruption, which is often linked to violence, has a corrosive effect on the fabric of society, the report warns.
You can read the document at the Europol website.
