Cocaine, Drug Trafficking | Cocaine traffic from South America: – Only one group has hegemony

With a flatter structure without mafia bosses, and with steel control over logistics, criminals from the Balkans have taken over the hegemony of cocaine smuggling from South America.

South American production has picked up sharply in the last decade. Official sources say the smugglers from the Balkans were perfectly positioned to meet the European demand.

They dominate the complex logistics needed to transport cocaine from laboratories in the Andes to street vendors in Paris, London or Berlin.

Read also: Accused of accepting 150 kilos of cocaine: – Thought it was hashish

More cocaine to Europe than the US

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recorded cocaine seizures of 315 tonnes in Europe in 2021. In the same year, seizures in the USA amounted to 250 tonnes. In the last decade, cocaine in Europe has increased in purity. UNDOC takes it as a sign of abundance, according to the Reuters news agency.

– When we talk about large shipments to the European continent, only one group has hegemony – smugglers from the Balkans, says Brazilian federal police officer Ivo Silva.

The Balkans is a peninsula that stretches from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The definition of what is covered by the term Balkans varies slightly. But these countries are included: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Romania.

The groups from the Balkans have avoided the strict top-to-bottom structure that characterizes the cartels in Mexico and Colombia. Instead, the smuggling organization works in small cells that are highly mobile, secretive and capable of smuggling startlingly large quantities of cocaine.

Also read: Director of Customs on the cocaine threat: – We are the first line

No godfather

Police investigators have dubbed the groups the Balkan Cartel. These networks have proven difficult to penetrate.

– There is no strict hierarchical structure in the Balkan cartel. There is no godfather, says a former American drug investigator.

The former DEA investigator says the Balkan criminals happily cooperate with Israelis, Dutch, Swedes, Americans, Dominicans and Chinese triads.

– They work with whoever it should be, but steer clear of Americans, he says.

Responsible for 60 murders

The Balkan cartel business leaves ugly traces behind. In March, Greek police busted a group from the Balkans that is said to be responsible for more than 60 murders in Europe. European Commissioner Ylva Johansson says that drug-related murders now challenge terrorism as the biggest security threat in Europe. An investigator at Europol states that there are supposed to be more than 50 different groups from the Balkans that are now operating in Latin America.

We have to go back over 20 years in time to understand the strong presence of criminals from the Balkans in Latin America today. During the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, criminal smuggling groups flourished. When peace came in the early 2000s, some of the groups sought new opportunities in Latin America.

Here they formed alliances with powerful criminal networks in both Colombia and Brazil. Gradually they built up. The shipment was carried out with the help of several thousand seafarers from the Balkans. The seamen were either bribed or forced to tamper with containers, hide cocaine among their own belongings or reload the cocaine onto small boats out on the open sea.

Good at hiding identity

It took a long time for the Balkan cartel’s extensive smuggling operations to come to a head. Partly because these smugglers were masters at maneuvering between different jurisdictions with false documents.

A seizure in June 2019 showed how deeply the Balkan cartels had penetrated international shipping. Then the US authorities found 18 tons of cocaine on board a cargo ship belonging to the world’s largest shipping company, the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

Another impact came when European police launched an investigation into two encrypted communication services the year before. They assumed that criminals were using both EncroChat and Sky ECC in a big way. French, German and Belgian investigators managed to infiltrate the services within a couple of years.

Under the guise of tens of millions of conversations, they found a vibrant ecosystem where suspects talked openly about drug trafficking, arms dealing and planned murders. Both services have been shut down, but the investigation into the recordings continues. So far, more than 6,500 suspects have been arrested according to Europol.

On Tuesday this week, a trial also started in Hordaland district court where five Albanians are accused of importing 150 kilos of cocaine into Western Norway.

Uses legitimate companies

Despite a series of major seizures, the Balkan cartel continues to flood Europe with cocaine, according to police sources. Brazilian police officer Alexandre Custodio says the Balkan cartel previously used fake companies to smuggle the cocaine. They have stopped doing that. Now they use real and legitimate export companies.

– The Balkan cartel is the biggest locomotive in Europe’s booming cocaine trade. They have refined their methods – and it works, says a source in the US anti-narcotics agency DEA to Reuters.

(© NTB)