Cocaine is flooding into Europe as drug market continues to evolve Drug Smuggling - Andrew Cunningham HEAD TOPICS
Cocaine is flooding into Europe as drug market continues to evolve
10/22/2022 12:14:00 AM Recent busts underscore a reality European drug authorities have been warning about that more cocaine than ever is pouring into the continent where South American chemists traffickers and local mafias are helping to bring it to market
Drug Smuggling Andrew Cunningham
Source Yahoo News
Recent busts underscore a reality Europe an drug authorities have been warning about: that more cocaine than ever is pouring into the continent, where South American chemists, traffickers and local mafias are helping to bring it to market. Recent busts underscore a reality Europe an drug authorities have been warning about: that more cocaine than ever is pouring into the continent, where South American chemists, traffickers and local mafias are helping to bring it to market. A cocaine lab near Madrid. (Policía Nacional)These recent busts, largely made possible by advances in tapping criminals’ encrypted phones, underscore a reality European drug authorities have been warning about: that more cocaine than ever is pouring into the continent, where South American chemists, traffickers and local mafias are helping to bring it to market. of what’s coming into Europe, a booming market for cocaine that now rivals the one in the United States.Story continuesIn recent years, traffickers have increasingly looked to expand their customer base in Europe,Seized packages of cocaine at a police base in Cartagena, Colombia, previously bound for the port of Rotterdam. (Felipe Caicedo/AP) Read more:
Yahoo News » 19 Screenshots From Recent Bumble Interactions That Show How Bleak Dating Is Right Now Outdoor Clothing Company Closes SF Store Amid Recent Crime Biggest Movers: DOGE, XRP Rebound Following Recent Declines – Market Updates Bitcoin News Oddsmakers have Jaguars favored at home against N.Y. Giants despite recent struggles Get to know Cindy Hsu
We're getting to know our very own Cindy Hsu a little better with a series of rapid-fire questions. Read more >> 19 Screenshots From Recent Bumble Interactions That Show How Bleak Dating Is Right NowTrying to spark a conversation out of one-word responses looks exhausting. Outdoor Clothing Company Closes SF Store Amid Recent CrimeA popular outdoor clothing and equipment brand is temporarily shutting down its store in San Francisco. But there’s no crime problem in SF right? Biggest Movers: DOGE, XRP Rebound Following Recent Declines – Market Updates Bitcoin NewsFollowing two days of declines, dogecoin rebounded earlier in today’s session, moving away from a key level of support. GUYS!! The craziest airdrop is Live 💰 GUYS!! Crazy returns in airdrop now 🎁 GUYS!! Airdrop Don't be late 🤯 Oddsmakers have Jaguars favored at home against N.Y. Giants despite recent strugglesThe Jaguars (2-4) have been installed as favorites this week against the Giants (5-1). They're similar teams despite a disparity in records. Police issue alert of recent Hyundai, Kia car thefts on Chicago's West SideWithin the past two weeks, at least five Hyundai and Kia vehicles were stolen from the street and parking lots in a South Austin corridor. October 21, 2022, 10:18 PM · 7 min read A cocaine lab near Madrid.This guy's blunt, odd choice for a"favorite quality in a person.Caught on Camera: Thieves Break Into San Francisco Antique Store Miguel Gayton read it as he came to shop Wednesday.The meme coin, which has been hovering close to a one-month low, surged, as bulls seemingly bought the dip. (Policía Nacional) BARCELONA, Spain — Three weeks ago, in the farmlands of central Spain, police spotted something peculiar: a surveillance drone hovering over a forest. Pushing in, they discovered something never before seen in Spain: an outdoor drug laboratory set up under a tarp where Colombian chemists were extracting cocaine that had been infused into concrete powder, a process police estimate was funneling 264 pounds of cocaine into the country each week. This person complaining about all the shy guys on an app where women have to message first. Last month, Spanish police also seized 1,843 pounds of cocaine and shut down several laboratories and processing centers just outside of Barcelona, and in July seized six remote-controlled, unmanned submarines fitted with hidden compartments built to transport cocaine to Spain from Africa. On Wednesday, people were out walking and shopping. On Wednesday, Spain’s national police announced that they’d seized another 145 pounds of pure cocaine hidden in industrial rolling machines shipped from Peru. Last year, around 300 tons of cocaine were seized across Europe, but according to Europol deputy spokesperson Claire Georges, the amount being seized is only “a very small part of what is coming in. The world’s tenth largest cryptocurrency rose to a high of $0. ” These recent busts, largely made possible by advances in tapping criminals’ encrypted phones, underscore a reality European drug authorities have been warning about: that more cocaine than ever is pouring into the continent, where South American chemists, traffickers and local mafias are helping to bring it to market. There are discussions about adding private security or cameras. With increasingly clever ways of smuggling the drug and its coca base — including infusing cocaine into plastic chips, charcoal or clothes — authorities and analysts believe they may be finding only 10%-15%, or as little as 1%, of what’s coming into Europe, a booming market for cocaine that now rivals the one in the United States. Police officers approaching a container ship in Rotterdam harbor, the Netherlands, which has become a hub of drug smuggling. (John Thys/AFP via Getty Images) “The number of shipments coming in has increased, the interdiction rate has increased,” forensics expert Andrew Cunningham, who heads the markets, crime and supply reduction unit at the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon, Portugal, told Yahoo News. “We want to rally together with our neighboring businesses with the community, the city and see if there is a way, we can resolve this,” Smith said. “Cocaine use has increased, and the quality of what’s on the streets has increased.50 Should dogecoin bulls intend to take prices higher, we would first need to see a breakout of this current hurdle. ” The only thing that isn’t up, said Cunningham, is the price. On the street, cocaine still sells for around $65 a gram, even though the potency of the drug has gone up. In Europe it is being cut less — boosting its strength — apparently because traffickers have so much product “they want to get rid of it quickly,” said Cunningham. Story continues Authorities say there is now a surplus of the drug, with chemists turning some of it into highly addictive crack cocaine or mixing it with deadly fentanyl. Worldwide cocaine production is breaking all records — and numbers have grown each year since. In recent years, traffickers have increasingly looked to expand their customer base in Europe, where cocaine can fetch double the wholesale price from that in the U.S. And while Colombian cartels have historically dealt only with Italian mafias, who controlled its entry into Europe, new criminal actors are now involved in producing, smuggling and distributing cocaine across the continent. Seized packages of cocaine at a police base in Cartagena, Colombia, previously bound for the port of Rotterdam. (Felipe Caicedo/AP) Since the breakup of Colombia’s Medellin and Cali cartels in the 1990s, “the trend in drug trafficking has been away from monolithic, centrally controlled operations and towards ever more multinational, decentralized networks, involving numerous different trafficking cells, which often have specialist roles,” said James Bargent, a journalist at InsightCrime, who co-authored “ The Cocaine Pipeline to Europe ,” a report released by Global Initiative. He added that “these fluid networks are more flexible and agile, and less vulnerable to law enforcement, as each node knows little about the others, and can often be easily replaced if one is taken down.” Over the past 15 years, Albanian crime groups have muscled into the scene and Colombian and Dominican traffickers have moved to Europe to oversee operations from Spain, long a major hub for cocaine entry. Now, however, most smuggled cocaine is believed to be coming in via maritime containers into the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands — Europe’s biggest — and the nearby port of Antwerp, Belgium. “The Netherlands has always been a country that’s connected with some drug trafficking, but that’s because it’s a country that’s a transportation hub,” criminologist Lieselot Bisschop, a professor at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, told Yahoo News. “There's a lot of infrastructure that facilitates trade overall. Illegal trade can piggyback off of the legal trade,” she added. Belgian customs officers search for drugs in a container at the port of Antwerp. (Francois Walschaerts/AFP via Getty Images) With nearly 9 million containers coming through the Dutch port every year, added Georges, of Europol, “it’s impossible to check everything, given the volume, and [smugglers] take advantage of the situation.” In 2021, authorities seized over 70 tons of cocaine with a street value of over $3.5 billion in that port alone — a new record. “But this is just the tip of the iceberg,” a report posted on the Port of Rotterdam’s website stated . “It seems that these drug seizures are not really hampering criminal activities.” As the amount of cocaine coming into the region has skyrocketed, so has the number of traffickers and distributors, narco-crimes, murders and public shootings, all of which has shaken traditionally tolerant Dutch society. Jan Struijs, chairman of the Netherlands PolitieBond police union, said recently his country has .