The European Center for Drug and Addiction Control stated - in a report issued in 2021 - that about 3.6 million Europeans used cocaine at least once during the year, which is a "historic" level 4 times higher than recorded 20 years ago.
The supply of cocaine increased in Europe with the acceleration of demand growth, as the volume of cocaine seized on the continent set a record in 2021, with the seizure of 240 tons - according to the European Police Office (Europol) - compared to 213 tons in 2020 and 49 tons 10 years earlier.
Large quantities of the white drug were also seized recently, including a huge amount of 30 tons last November, during a security operation that dealt a strong blow to a "big gang" that law enforcement officials have not been able to rein in so far.
And in 2020, the largest amount of cocaine ever (214.6 tons) was seized in the European Union, Norway and Turkey for the fourth year in a row, according to the report issued by the European Police Agency (Europol) in cooperation with the European Center for Drug and Addiction Monitoring.
growing threat
Commenting on these numbers, Director of the Belgian Federal Judicial Police Eric Snook believes that what is happening is similar to a "white tsunami" sweeping the old continent.
The cocaine market, the second most consumed drug in the European Union after cannabis, is worth more than $24 billion.
Another report - issued by the European Union last May - concluded that the EU countries face a "growing threat" from a more diverse and dynamic drug market based on close cooperation between European and international criminal organizations.
The director of the European Center for the Control of Drugs and Addiction Alexis Gosdel said that the new nature of this market has led to "record levels of drug availability, increased violence and corruption, and exacerbated health problems."
He pointed out that this market is expanding, driven by record levels of smuggling and growing problems of violence, and that it was not negatively affected by the turmoil caused by the Corona pandemic, and confirms the continuation of cocaine trafficking by sea at levels similar to what it was before 2019.
Cocaine consumption in Europe has reached "historic" levels in recent years (Getty Images)
distribution hotspots
Official security data indicate that the main entry points and the most prominent cocaine distribution centers in Europe are the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, which are the countries where the drug is often diverted after its production in Latin American countries such as Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.
And the port of Rotterdam, the largest in Europe, has received increasing amounts of white powder in recent years.
The city's mayor, Ahmed Abu Talib, warned, in the summer of last year, that his city was effectively "drowning in cocaine," denouncing the violence associated with smuggling this substance, and proposing that all containers coming from Latin America be subjected to a scan.
And the problem "has grown in recent years," explains Khair Sheringa, who is in charge of the customs authorities of the Dutch port, which is - in addition to the Belgian port of Antwerp - the most important entry point for cocaine into the continent.
digital technologies
Observers explain the high level of cocaine consumption among Europeans in recent years for several reasons, but European reports showed that the increasing use of digital technologies in marketing is one of the most prominent of these reasons, including the dark and visual web, communication and mobile applications.
Cocaine, for example, flows into the French capital, as is the case with most major European cities. Submitting an order does not require more than 10 minutes via encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Signal, and the customer receives the order at his home, just as he receives a pizza or a fast food.
"Consumers prefer to use a messaging platform and receive the order at their doorstep," explains Virginie Hague, who leads the anti-narcotics brigade in Paris with the rank of officer. "It is much easier than going to a poor and unsafe suburban neighborhood."
The Colombian army waged an open war on cocaine dealers and gangs (Anatolia)
The origin of coca
تبدأ رحلة المسحوق الأبيض على بعد آلاف الكيلومترات من القارة العجوز، حيث تنمو في منحدرات الهضاب المرتفعة لكولومبيا وبيرو وبوليفيا الأوراق التي يُستخرج منها المخدر الذي أشاع استعماله بالقرن الـ 19 لخصائصه العلاجية، كما يوضح المحلل النفسي سيغموند فرويد وعدد من الكيميائيين الأوروبيين.
ويعمل مئات الآلاف من المزارعين الكولومبيين في مجال زراعة الكوكا، وهو واقع لم تغيره مليارات الدولارات التي أنفقتها بوغوتا وواشنطن على مدى عقود في "الحرب على المخدرات" حيث لا ينفك إنتاج هذا المخدر عن النمو.
وقد بلغ بالفعل مستوى قياسيا "تاريخيا" عام 2021 حيث تم حصاد 1400 طن، مقابل 1010 أطنان عام 2020، أي بارتفاع قدره 43%، وفق مكتب الأمم المتحدة المعني بالمخدرات والجريمة.
كما يقدر الخبراء الحجم الإجمالي للكوكايين الذي عرض بالسوق العالمية -خلال نفس السنة- بأكثر من ألفَي طن.
Colombia alone is the supplier of two-thirds of the cocaine consumed in the world, but the fall of the Medellin and Cali cartels, the two largest drug gangs in this country and the world, occurred in the mid-1990s.
Something changed the nature of the Colombian market in the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) rebels.
This change has been in the interest of drug cartels in another country, Mexico. After they were mere middlemen at the end of the last century, the Mexicans took advantage of the collapse of their Colombian competitors to extend their control over the sector almost completely, from financing production to supervising exports.
Mexican cartels such as the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels, having long prioritized their "natural" market, the United States, are now targeting Europe, which is experiencing rising consumption.
"The US market has become saturated, at a time when coca is sold in Europe at a price that is 50 to 100% higher," explains Florian Cola, director of French customs intelligence.
"Another advantage for traders is that the criminal risks may be less severe in Europe than in the United States," he adds.
Banana shipments
Like 90% of world trade, most cocaine crosses the Atlantic Ocean in containers, the drug hidden in shipments of bananas, powdered sugar or canned goods.
Another part is smuggled by air in the bags or intestines of smugglers who depart, for example, from Cayenne in French Guiana, heading to Paris.
It is also sometimes smuggled at the bottom of the sea with remote-controlled submarines, such as those seized by the Spanish police in July 2022.
And at the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, the Mexicans established their smuggling bridge to Europe through the Costa del Sol region in southern Spain.
Years later, with the arrest of many smuggling lords and the explosive growth of maritime transport, they turned their attention to the main shipping ports in the north of the Old Continent.
Cocaine is shipped to the Brazilian port of Santos, which is controlled by the Sao Paulo mafia, and the port of Guayaquil in Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Peru, before reaching the ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Le Havre.
"Some shipments stop in the Antilles near the Gulf of Mexico, others go to the Balkans or pass through West Africa before ending up in Europe," said Corinne Cleostrat, deputy director of French customs.
Authorities in Hamburg, Germany, seize a shipment of cocaine (Reuters)
security threat
The European Observatory on Drugs and Addiction stated in 2016 that the drug markets - in which European Union citizens spend more than $ 24 billion annually - constitute "one of the most prominent threats to the security of the continent."
Mexican, Colombian and Italian criminal groups control the importation of cocaine into the old continent, with a significant development of the role of other sub-gangs such as the Nigerian and Balkan ones, for example.
Concerns were also raised - in a joint report issued last year by Europol and the US Drug Enforcement Administration - that cooperation between Mexican and European criminal actors "may continue to evolve", as cocaine seizures from Mexico have emerged in recent years as a "prominent feature" of the drug scene. European.
torture chambers
In order to market their product, transnational drug gangs adopt various methods, such as resorting to "corrupting" officials of the public and private sectors through bribes and debt-buying, as confirmed by Politico.
And this magazine warned - in a report - that "the increased presence of Mexican cartels in the European Union may lead to an increase in the level of violence," as the main ports in northern Europe are plagued by the violence of local mafias that destabilize deep-rooted democracies such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
From grenades and shootings in the streets of Antwerp to assassinations in Amsterdam, to plans to kidnap political figures in the two countries, the smugglers' methods threaten public order and shake the stability of the entire society, according to Politico.
European security institutions also monitored the smuggling networks' full readiness to do anything to defend their interests.
Describing the methods of these gangs, Belgian policeman Eric Snoek says, "We discovered unprecedented violence... There is no deterrent to torturing someone with good information or executing someone who did not respect an agreement. It's chilling."
Indeed, in 2020, the Dutch police discovered in one of the country's ports containers that had been converted into detention and torture rooms.
The Belgian authorities also thwarted a plan to kidnap Justice Minister Vincent Van Cockenborn in September 2022. Dutch media reported attempts, last October, to target Princess Amalia (18 years), who holds the mandate of the Covenant, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte. .
A famous lawyer and journalist who were involved in the trial of the leader of a drug smuggling network in the Netherlands were assassinated in 2019 and 2021, which shocked the country and prompted the authorities to adopt more measures to contain the growing influence of smuggling networks.
Honduran authorities dispose of a shipment of cocaine through burning (Reuters)
Killed and kidnapped
On the other hand, the intensification of competition - especially in Belgium, France and Spain - between drug suppliers led to an increase in violent confrontations, killings and kidnappings.
"Conflicting financial interests have made criminal organizations import cartel methods into our territory: score-settling, kidnapping and torture," says Stephanie Cherbonnier, head of OFAST, the French anti-drug office.
Last September, the Attorney General in Brussels, Johan Delmol, warned of the consequences of his country turning into a "drug state" in the near future.
In France, Le Figaro indicated - in a report published in September 2022 - that the stronger the criminal organizations and drug gangs in the country, the more they permeate society through corruption.
The newspaper pointed out that procrastination and turning a blind eye to the fight against these gangs makes them permeate the police and the army to reach high political positions, and thus the cost of dismantling them at a later time becomes much higher.
And I conveyed - through Michel Aubouin - the former governor who specializes in immigration issues - a warning to the French state that if the government one day decided to combat drug trafficking, the cities might enter a state similar to a rebellion.
"Then France will be shaken, because then it will not be a matter of conventional operations to maintain order, but war operations that require means that we are not sure we have ... France has not yet turned into Mexico, but if we are not vigilant enough we can follow its path," she added.
Intelligence cooperation
Faced with the worsening cocaine dilemma in Europe year after year, the customs authorities in the countries of the Union coordinate with the countries from which the drug is exported, educate employees against suspicions of corruption and impose severe penalties on those involved in smuggling operations.
These and other control measures are often taken based on an assessment of potential risks. For example, some containers are classified as "suspicious" based on information received from abroad, scanned, then unloaded and searched with the help of specialized dogs. Groups of divers also examine ships hovering around them. doubts.
The European police and judiciary also launched an "all-out war" by developing intelligence and targeting work and strengthening international cooperation and port security.
French customs agents - for example - on the island of Martinique are on the first front line with smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, watching and checking fishing boats, sailboats and cargo ships sailing off the coast of Latin America.
However, the efficacy of such measures in curbing secret smuggling channels is questionable, especially in light of the increasing demand for cocaine in Europe, which is confirmed by Jean-Charles, Director of Customs Officers on the island of Martinique, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, north of Trinidad and Tobago, by saying, "Smugglers are now aware of our methods ... we are trying." "We will do our best but we must know that we will not be able to catch everything. Many times we are a step behind."