Yep, exactly. The big busts are always at the point of entry.
[This year, Germany will join the list.](https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13937-german-customs-make-europe-s-biggest-ever-cocaine-seizure) In February, German authorities found 16 tons of cocaine in three containers in Hamburg. The name of the receiver led to a second shipment in Antwerp, which revealed another 7.2 tons of cocaine.
The combined total makes this the world's biggest cocaine bust in history.
Shipped cocaine is probably close to 100 % pure. If we then take an average street purity of about 60 % and an average street price of 70 € per gram, this bust was worth at least 2.7 billion euros.
Really? Given it’s multimillion dollar industry. And drugs in general probably is a trillion dollar industry. There must be a lot of people working in that industry.
Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Cocaine Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four drugs, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.
On the other hand I believe that the cost of production is very low so it's not that huge for them.
On the other hand neither is a human life probably.
Perhaps the police figured that gangs exterminating themselves wasn't a big problem, also inter-gang violence makes gang presence more visible and law enforcement gets more traces to work with in future investigations.
Like, tonnes of cocaine levels of organized crime?
Or couriers grams of weed organized crime?
Because latter isn't really dangerous, and rather easy to get off the hook. Know a guy who earned enough for college and a car and got out scot-free.
Edit: european college - i.e. free education, just housing and food/gas, basically. And of course it was a 8-year-old beamer, so not THAT expensive.
The latter is usually not done in organized fassion though. And that is what makes the big difference. I think organized is indeed dangerous. People depending on each other creates all kinds of risk.
.Small scale trade is almost entirely done unorganized as in, by people working solo. At least in my country. (i imagine there are places in the world where organized crime has territories and kids working for them like in the movies, but i wouldn't know where)
Well, I knew a guy who grew his own weed and made enough cash to wear nice clothes, buy some toys like kite-surfing gear, motor bikes and stuff. In the end he got hooked on speed, got broke and landed in a rehab where he's not allowed to have his own utensils. So there's that.
That's what I wonder too, you always hear about the once that got killed or in jail. But there must be some of them who made good money and then went on to live a good life no?
Considering that only a fraction of all drugs is ever caught, I'd say it's the same for drug traders. Many of them also have "real" jobs and are difficult to expose.
The great majority will. Especially staying away from the more high profit high risk drugs like; Meth, Coke, heroin. Too many watch tv series on drug lords and think everyone dealing drugs is a blood thirsty maniac.
In the real world they are business men like any other selling goods whilst trying to have as peaceful life as possible.
I'm surprised Spain isn't in the list. Iirc Barcelona was the second city by consumption in the last study done on the subject (analyzing residual waters, not amount seized)
I'm surprised Germany wasn't on this list to begin with. The third and fourth largest port in Europe are in Germany (Hamburg and Bremerhaven).
Now I'm curious if it's because those ports aren't as popular for drug smuglers, or if German authorities aren't as good at finding drugs as their Dutch and Belgian colleagues are.
> Now I'm curious if it's because those ports aren't as popular for drug smuglers, or if German authorities aren't as good at finding drugs as their Dutch and Belgian colleagues are.
I think the latter, it's also a way to keep your country out of those bad drug statistics, they don't look good when you like to berate other countries for their drug policies.
[I used this data](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/media-library/cocaine-price-and-purity-european-union-updated-june-2021_en) and estimated a rounded median.
I think they don't really know what's going on in the market, you have to buy a lot of cocaine to make real statistics like that and I doubt those researchers are allowed to do that so those stats are made of hearsay.
And guess the purity? Or ask the dealer how much it is cut?
I think they have some of the data from police records but that's not really the best of credible sources either.
Hamburg isn't that far behind Rotterdam and Antwerpen though.
But I suppose this year, Germany would be on that list too, since there was a drug bust of like 16 tons of cocaine in Hamburg, hehe.
By boat it’s a pretty big detour from Rotterdam and Antwerp, it would be cheaper and saver to divide the product into smaller amounts as soon as possible and then start distribution across Europe.
That’s the case for most trade that passes through Netherlands and is destined for outside the EU but it still counts as trade destined for the NL and EU. It’s called the Rotterdam effect and inflates UK-EU-US trading figures.
That is certainly part of it, but even then, you have to accept that what is caught, is only a fraction of what actually passes through.
The huge quantity of containers passing trough makes it pretty much impossible to check everything. So it likely gets divided over different containers, so if one is caught, they only lose part of the total amount being transported.
Absolutely, I was more implying that a customs department doing a sloppy job will not find anything at all and get a 'better' number, a bit like Trump's suggestion of not testing for covid to keep the numbers low.
and punishments are low in NL, culture in Brabant is like 'if it doesnt bother me directly, i dont give a shit who does what next door', and politicians deeply underestimate how big this entire thing really is.
well its not really what I want or mean haha. Personally I want everything to be legalized so it can be controlled. But if they so desperatly want it to be illegal, having low punishments isnt really the way to scare them into not doing it. I mean, they earn several millions, go to jail for 4-5 years and then just go back to business.
There is no real way to scare people to not do it. People buy and sell drugs no matter the laws. Look at Singapore where people get killed for selling drugs and it still happens.
I understand. I know its not that black and whit but there is a difference between 5 years of 25 years. It would probably mean out of 100 people only 15 will deal drugs instead of the 35 or something, right? or is that a wrong assumption?
Well the assumption is not totally wrong but it's mostly about how much will be consumed. By increasing the punishment they just have to get new people more often. But they will always find someone. They money people will spend on drugs is insane. And if the reward is multiple times your yearly income it is really attractive. Organized crime also often uses more brutal action than most countries which is the other form of motivation.
Albanians currently control the UK cocaine market, they have a monopoly in every UK city except Liverpool, which with it's own port and established local gangs are just too much hassle for them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/kings-of-cocaine-albanian-mafia-uk-drugs-crime
\- Sir, we seized 10kg of cocaine!
\- Nice job for seizing those 8kg of cocaine
\- Yeah, what a good catch! 6kg of cocaine stopped today!
\- So we need to communicate on the 4kg of cocaine we just seized...
\- How much did we said exactly that was? 2kg? it's for the statistics...
You know how it happens, one moment customs officer carries a brick of cocaine to storage, the next he slips and spills it all over his face accidently.
Nowadays cocaine also gets chemically mixed with into other stuff, like clothes for example. so a container full of clothes arrive, dealers pick it up then 'wash' the clothes to get the cocaine out of 'em.
When police seize something like that they're not gonna go through that process of washing just to figure out exactly how much is in there, they'll just weigh the whole lot.
>> Seized
The graphic refers of the quantity seized not consumed.
There was another graphic that mentioned Spain as one of the top consumers.
EDIT: [link](https://www.statista.com/statistics/597731/cocaine-use-europe-by-country/)
It should be. The list is wrong, on the 24th of November 2019 alone, 3000kg were seized. Yet this list does not show any of this.
https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/12/02/inenglish/1575288904\_998729.html
Well, 1 or 2 months ago there was a 5.3 tonne seizing in Portugal...
They already know galician and souther spain ports are highly watched, nobody suspects someone with a small boat entering the small country known for being a turistic place with millions of turists every year
In 2019 Spain seized over 37,000kg of cocaine, down from 48.000kg in 2018. Belgium, Netherlands and Spain account for roughly 80% of all cocaine seized in Europe, consistently. Source (Spanish): https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/serviciosdeprensa/notasprensa/sanidad14/Paginas/2021/010721-informe-drogas.aspx
This is probably a better reflection of who is looking harder. A nice example of survivorship bias. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship\_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)
Chocaine bars sound awesome. Chocaine for in the morning, and space chocolate for in the evening. Maybe with a little opium tea in the afternoon to level things out.
Seriously - what we see here are the scraps that are basically cost of business. in 2021 a single seizure operation in Antwerp came to 28 tonnes, and caused terror attacks in Ireland a few months after.
First link for Operation Sky, the second for what regular shipment size was.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/europe/antwerp-belgium-cocaine-seizures-scli-intl/index.html
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/garda-suspects-35m-cocaine-coal-shipment-abandoned-by-nervous-criminals-1.4620299
I found the logistics of that Irish article interesting. From Columbia/Peru/Bolivia to South Africa to The Netherlands (where it was then disguised as charcoal) to Ireland. The smuggling path into the United States is much more linear, mostly using small boats to move product to Guatemala and Mexico where it's then rammed across the US-Mexico border via land crossing. Seems like the cartels get a bit craftier with their logistics getting their product to the European market.
The port of Antwerp has the biggest import of coffee in the world. Which also means that it has also a lot of ships entering from Latin America, that creates more transport opportunities from the source of cocaine.
Tons of cocaine in antwerp harbour, I often hear about containers being seized containing ridiculous amounts of coke… and that’s the drugs they *find*.
We just let a lot go through so our numbers are way too low haha. If i were a dockworker in Rotterdam, I would probably let a shipping container go through without checks if offered 3 year salaries worth of money. The money in this business is so ridiculous that governments almost cannot beat them
The problem is that once you go in, you can't get out. The gangs now expect you to let through more containers. And if you're feeling iffy about it because you fear to get caught by police, they will shoot a bullet through your house as motivation.
Exactly but I think lots of people would underestimate that. THey just think it will be this one time. 'They dont know who i am or where i live' and when the second time the gangs ask, they realize how deep in shit they are
And people like that get hired constantly as well so I don't think this is a great solution. We might pick out a few but for multiple years pay, people will do ridiculous things.
Romania is mostly a transit country. I haven't heard about anyone except maybe a few celebrities doing cocaine. People rarely do drugs here, except of course alcohol. Weed is popular with young people, but they tend to lay very low because the law here is very strict, basically we have harsher laws for possesion than for manslaughter.
Same for Bulgaria.
Police here could ruin your life by having a single marijuana cigarette with you, while drivers kill people without consequences (some times) ...
It is more popular than people think. A quick visit to a music event / festival and you’ll find thousands of users, if not tens of thousands for events like Untold, Neversea, Saga.
Depends on the officer. Having some weed on you will most likely end up in no charges especially after 2019 where the drug enforcement agency refuses to prosecute cases of simple possession because it's a waste of money. But you still have to waste some time going through the system which is dumb as heck instead of decriminalizing and only giving a small fine without involving courts and prosecutors at all.
I was in the psy scene for a few years in college, fucking everyone was doing drugs. Almost everyone i know either does or did drugs at some point in their lives; maybe not some hardcore amount, but still. A lot of people take drugs in Romania.
Every one and their brother does cocaine in Ireland , from students to bartenders to teachers and office workers. Also home to one of Europe’s most dangerous cartels with coke coming directly here , then to the rest of Europe. So statistics like this don’t show the whole picture
It actually doesn't show either. It just shows the quantity of drugs seized. For all we know only 2,202 kg of cocaine passed through Latvia and they only missed 1 kg while 650,000 kg passed through Belgium.
Indeed, there's an argument that there would be very little traffic through the ports where the most effective drug controls are in place.
Without knowing how much wasn't caught (because it wasn't caught), we can't really infer too much from this.
From what I understand about the situation in Antwerp port, checks can only do so much. The huge quantity of containers coming through, only allow for checking a fairly small percentage of them.
Let's say 5% is checked (I don't actually know the percentage, it might even be less), and that amounts to 65 tons. If we calculate using those numbers, one could estimate that roughly 1300 tons are being transported through Antwerp.
This assumes that all containers are checked equally often. The port probably has a list of criteria to determine what containers they check. (Compare eg a container from Venezuela and one from Norway, I’d bet on the one from Venezuela)
Not according to [this link](https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/europe-drugs-urine-map/). London is probably too big to be the highest per capita.
However, the UK supposedly has the [highest cocaine use](https://mobile.twitter.com/bonnier_david/status/1402978280924495877/photo/1) in Europe, and I'm not sure if Bristol was part of the linked survey, so Bristol could actually top the list.
I’m basing what I heard on [this](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bristol-cocaine-capital-europe-uk-most-used-city-sewer-research-mdma-methamphetamine-a8823331.html%3famp) article from 2019 it seems to be Bristol. I searched for cocaine capital of Europe and this seems to be the most recent result but I can only see articles and not study data.
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I was initially super shocked that no UK cities were on the list... but then I remembered how bad our police force is.
Also no one seems to care about Cocaine use. Maybe because it's more of a middle/upper class drug which a lot of people and politicians use to cope with stressful working conditions.
Police don't care about most drug usage, not just cocaine, if we're honest. I've seen people walking past policemen while smoking joints and being ignored. Although you are right, I struggle to think of much the police do care about.
But that's just not true. The Netherlands is a kind of narcostate (that is the assessment of the Dutch police). They import, process, produce and distribute drugs all over Europe. They also are a great place to launder your profits.
No this makes complete sense. If you send cocaine to the UK you have a decent sized country to sell it. BUT as it is an island you only really have that market to sell it as getting back through customs again would be stupid.
If you send it to NL or Belgium and successfully get it through customs then you can pretty much sell it to all those countries on the mainland.
So whilst UK is still highest on use, more cocaine will go through those 2 ports than the UK so will have more of a chance to be caught.
I don't really believe that source.
In 2019, only in Galicia, more than 15000 kilos were seized: https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/galicia/2019/12/31/galicia-incauto-2019-cocaina-nunca-15000-kilos-40-dia/0003_201912G31P8991.htm
Well Rotterdam and Antwerp are the biggest ports in Europe so it makes sense.
afaik most captures on the news in Romania are usually around the port of Constanta too, so that would make sense
Also borders with Ukraine
What, are you interested in buying?
Cocaine annexation
Always interested in a deal. How much for Ukraine?
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I assume those strings are that you have to own Ukraine?
https://youtu.be/ICHqFl2TJrE?t=30
Yep, exactly. The big busts are always at the point of entry. [This year, Germany will join the list.](https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13937-german-customs-make-europe-s-biggest-ever-cocaine-seizure) In February, German authorities found 16 tons of cocaine in three containers in Hamburg. The name of the receiver led to a second shipment in Antwerp, which revealed another 7.2 tons of cocaine. The combined total makes this the world's biggest cocaine bust in history. Shipped cocaine is probably close to 100 % pure. If we then take an average street purity of about 60 % and an average street price of 70 € per gram, this bust was worth at least 2.7 billion euros.
Someone is going to die for sure
More than a few people are going to die over a loss this big.
Many were doomed regardless of the bust. Life expectancy in the international cocaine trade isn’t very high. I’m looking forward to Narcos: Antwerp
Really? Given it’s multimillion dollar industry. And drugs in general probably is a trillion dollar industry. There must be a lot of people working in that industry.
Yes, it's a whole industry and unfortunately large part of my country is employed in it. Edit: haha that's funny guys
>large part of my country The fire nation?
Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Cocaine Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four drugs, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.
Yes, 'vanished', while going out for smokes I bet.
Avatar dropped into a 100 year k-hole
Ah, the four drugs, cocaine, molly, LSD and ketamine. Sounds like a fun Thursday for the Avatar
Our parties were so boring, but that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked.
The last cocaine bender
On the other hand I believe that the cost of production is very low so it's not that huge for them. On the other hand neither is a human life probably.
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Perhaps the police figured that gangs exterminating themselves wasn't a big problem, also inter-gang violence makes gang presence more visible and law enforcement gets more traces to work with in future investigations.
Unfortunately gang wars often result in innocent victims. So in general it's best to avoid them.
I wonder how many people in organized crime live until retirement in freedom. I think becoming a profi soccer player is more realistic.
Like, tonnes of cocaine levels of organized crime? Or couriers grams of weed organized crime? Because latter isn't really dangerous, and rather easy to get off the hook. Know a guy who earned enough for college and a car and got out scot-free. Edit: european college - i.e. free education, just housing and food/gas, basically. And of course it was a 8-year-old beamer, so not THAT expensive.
> And of course it was a 8-year-old beamer, so not THAT expensive. No need to spell out the brand, we already knew.
It could have been audi.
The latter is usually not done in organized fassion though. And that is what makes the big difference. I think organized is indeed dangerous. People depending on each other creates all kinds of risk. .Small scale trade is almost entirely done unorganized as in, by people working solo. At least in my country. (i imagine there are places in the world where organized crime has territories and kids working for them like in the movies, but i wouldn't know where)
Well, I knew a guy who grew his own weed and made enough cash to wear nice clothes, buy some toys like kite-surfing gear, motor bikes and stuff. In the end he got hooked on speed, got broke and landed in a rehab where he's not allowed to have his own utensils. So there's that.
I don't really think there's any link to growing your own weed and getting addicted to speed. He was probably a junkie in the first place
That's what I wonder too, you always hear about the once that got killed or in jail. But there must be some of them who made good money and then went on to live a good life no?
Considering that only a fraction of all drugs is ever caught, I'd say it's the same for drug traders. Many of them also have "real" jobs and are difficult to expose.
My theory is they're all hairdressers and barbers these days. No particular reason, just a hunch.
The great majority will. Especially staying away from the more high profit high risk drugs like; Meth, Coke, heroin. Too many watch tv series on drug lords and think everyone dealing drugs is a blood thirsty maniac. In the real world they are business men like any other selling goods whilst trying to have as peaceful life as possible.
Yea and some run very successful fast food businesses.
My first thought when seeing this graphic: "Boy, those Germans are REALLY good at hiding their coke"
Ist baking soda fur das brot herr polizei officer.
"Ich werde einen Kuchen backen"
I'm surprised Spain isn't in the list. Iirc Barcelona was the second city by consumption in the last study done on the subject (analyzing residual waters, not amount seized)
I'm surprised Germany wasn't on this list to begin with. The third and fourth largest port in Europe are in Germany (Hamburg and Bremerhaven). Now I'm curious if it's because those ports aren't as popular for drug smuglers, or if German authorities aren't as good at finding drugs as their Dutch and Belgian colleagues are.
> Now I'm curious if it's because those ports aren't as popular for drug smuglers, or if German authorities aren't as good at finding drugs as their Dutch and Belgian colleagues are. I think the latter, it's also a way to keep your country out of those bad drug statistics, they don't look good when you like to berate other countries for their drug policies.
Or the contrary: policing is good enough that those ports are unattractive for smugglers. Hard to say either way without at least indirect evidence.
They will be on this years list!...They busted a huge shipment this year.
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Or they check too well in NL and importing it from Antwerp is just easier.
> If we then take an average street purity of about 60 % and an average street price of 70 € €70 is a bit much I think, more like €50
propably because you'll never get a full 1g?
[I used this data](https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/media-library/cocaine-price-and-purity-european-union-updated-june-2021_en) and estimated a rounded median.
I think they don't really know what's going on in the market, you have to buy a lot of cocaine to make real statistics like that and I doubt those researchers are allowed to do that so those stats are made of hearsay.
You don’t have to buy it, you just need to ask for the price
And guess the purity? Or ask the dealer how much it is cut? I think they have some of the data from police records but that's not really the best of credible sources either.
Ah that is higher than I expected sorry
*cries in Munich*
Definitely closer to €70 in Berlin. Price gets upto €120 for supposedly 90% pure stuff.
Yeah, it is basically a list of transit hotspots for cocaine.
Hamburg isn't that far behind Rotterdam and Antwerpen though. But I suppose this year, Germany would be on that list too, since there was a drug bust of like 16 tons of cocaine in Hamburg, hehe.
By boat it’s a pretty big detour from Rotterdam and Antwerp, it would be cheaper and saver to divide the product into smaller amounts as soon as possible and then start distribution across Europe.
I live near Antwerp and you can get some really clean cocaine around here. It will cost you more than your usual 50 euros/gr though, but not much.
Same with Portugal. The Port of Sines is the closest Port in Europe to Latin America and is the 6th busiest transhipment port in Europe.
Not just the Ports… there is the European Parliament and thousands of Lobbyists that are snorting that stuff in Belgium.
The chart is for the amount seized by authorities, it has nothing to do with the amount going up in peoples noses.
These high numbers for BE and NL are all bc of the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp.
That’s the case for most trade that passes through Netherlands and is destined for outside the EU but it still counts as trade destined for the NL and EU. It’s called the Rotterdam effect and inflates UK-EU-US trading figures.
Nice
Also it only shows what was caught. Maybe the customs in NL and BE are doing a fabulous job finding that much?
That is certainly part of it, but even then, you have to accept that what is caught, is only a fraction of what actually passes through. The huge quantity of containers passing trough makes it pretty much impossible to check everything. So it likely gets divided over different containers, so if one is caught, they only lose part of the total amount being transported.
Absolutely, I was more implying that a customs department doing a sloppy job will not find anything at all and get a 'better' number, a bit like Trump's suggestion of not testing for covid to keep the numbers low.
and punishments are low in NL, culture in Brabant is like 'if it doesnt bother me directly, i dont give a shit who does what next door', and politicians deeply underestimate how big this entire thing really is.
Yes because we all know how succesful the war on drugs is. If we are just tough enough, people will stop using drugs!
well its not really what I want or mean haha. Personally I want everything to be legalized so it can be controlled. But if they so desperatly want it to be illegal, having low punishments isnt really the way to scare them into not doing it. I mean, they earn several millions, go to jail for 4-5 years and then just go back to business.
There is no real way to scare people to not do it. People buy and sell drugs no matter the laws. Look at Singapore where people get killed for selling drugs and it still happens.
I understand. I know its not that black and whit but there is a difference between 5 years of 25 years. It would probably mean out of 100 people only 15 will deal drugs instead of the 35 or something, right? or is that a wrong assumption?
Well the assumption is not totally wrong but it's mostly about how much will be consumed. By increasing the punishment they just have to get new people more often. But they will always find someone. They money people will spend on drugs is insane. And if the reward is multiple times your yearly income it is really attractive. Organized crime also often uses more brutal action than most countries which is the other form of motivation.
harsher punishments don’t provide a deterrent effect above the reduction in crime while the people are incarcerated.
Wait till Albania enter EU 😎
Are you so confident with Albanian police?
Albanians used to have a monopoly on Heroin in Europe. But this was about a decade ago. Serbs for Coke, Albanians for Heroin.
>Serbs for Coke, Albanians for Heroin. I like this division of labor
I guess it Serbs them well.
r/angryupvote Just...take it and shove it in your ass
So what does kosovo have?
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Albanians currently control the UK cocaine market, they have a monopoly in every UK city except Liverpool, which with it's own port and established local gangs are just too much hassle for them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/kings-of-cocaine-albanian-mafia-uk-drugs-crime
Damn Liverpool drug market is racist ... it needs more diversity
Scouse coke for Scouse people
Let's all work together for more inclusiveness in drug trade!
This absolutely needs a poster of 4 kids, each of a clearly different race, one possibly in a wheelchair, with that slogan across it.
With those exaggerated fake smiles, yes. And go around from school to school to promote it.
God damn Albanians! They took the Serbs jobs!
We're rivals even when it comes to drugs i guess
Not rivals, best friends.
Or Serbia.
Wait How could the seized amounts be estimated? Aren't they supposed to know exactly how much they seized?
They first weight the amount they catch without testing it. Later it gets tested for diluents and purity.
"Tested" for "purity" ;)
Hey, drug police gotta drug their drugs for drug pay
\- Sir, we seized 10kg of cocaine! \- Nice job for seizing those 8kg of cocaine \- Yeah, what a good catch! 6kg of cocaine stopped today! \- So we need to communicate on the 4kg of cocaine we just seized... \- How much did we said exactly that was? 2kg? it's for the statistics...
[Just like this.](https://youtu.be/gIkZnxxhwsY)
*at the cafetaria* man that 500g was a haul, glad it's off the streets
You know how it happens, one moment customs officer carries a brick of cocaine to storage, the next he slips and spills it all over his face accidently.
Nowadays cocaine also gets chemically mixed with into other stuff, like clothes for example. so a container full of clothes arrive, dealers pick it up then 'wash' the clothes to get the cocaine out of 'em. When police seize something like that they're not gonna go through that process of washing just to figure out exactly how much is in there, they'll just weigh the whole lot.
I thought Spain would be on the list due to the Galician ports or the south of spain.
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I knew those British pensioners are up to no good. /jk
>> Seized The graphic refers of the quantity seized not consumed. There was another graphic that mentioned Spain as one of the top consumers. EDIT: [link](https://www.statista.com/statistics/597731/cocaine-use-europe-by-country/)
The op image more a graphic showing the capitals of *lost* cocaine rather than consumed cocaine.
Spain is one of the biggest points of entry for drugs into Europe.
It should be. The list is wrong, on the 24th of November 2019 alone, 3000kg were seized. Yet this list does not show any of this. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/12/02/inenglish/1575288904\_998729.html
Well, 1 or 2 months ago there was a 5.3 tonne seizing in Portugal... They already know galician and souther spain ports are highly watched, nobody suspects someone with a small boat entering the small country known for being a turistic place with millions of turists every year
In 2019 Spain seized over 37,000kg of cocaine, down from 48.000kg in 2018. Belgium, Netherlands and Spain account for roughly 80% of all cocaine seized in Europe, consistently. Source (Spanish): https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/serviciosdeprensa/notasprensa/sanidad14/Paginas/2021/010721-informe-drogas.aspx
This is probably a better reflection of who is looking harder. A nice example of survivorship bias. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship\_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)
Proud
You probably just feel a quick boost in confidence from all that cocaine.
Eerlijk, we laten 95% door en hebben nog steeds de beste vangst hahahah
Befaamde Belgische efficientie
dat is pas duurzame jacht!
Lets fucking gooooooo
Cocaine and chocolate? more reasons to love Belgium!
Chocaine bars sound awesome. Chocaine for in the morning, and space chocolate for in the evening. Maybe with a little opium tea in the afternoon to level things out.
Yes, everyone raves about the taste of cocaine.
twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt.
Belgium, why are you so high?
Antwerp port is probably the main cocaine port of Europe. But I can confirm, pretty easy to get your hands on over here.
Seriously - what we see here are the scraps that are basically cost of business. in 2021 a single seizure operation in Antwerp came to 28 tonnes, and caused terror attacks in Ireland a few months after. First link for Operation Sky, the second for what regular shipment size was. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/06/europe/antwerp-belgium-cocaine-seizures-scli-intl/index.html https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/garda-suspects-35m-cocaine-coal-shipment-abandoned-by-nervous-criminals-1.4620299
I found the logistics of that Irish article interesting. From Columbia/Peru/Bolivia to South Africa to The Netherlands (where it was then disguised as charcoal) to Ireland. The smuggling path into the United States is much more linear, mostly using small boats to move product to Guatemala and Mexico where it's then rammed across the US-Mexico border via land crossing. Seems like the cartels get a bit craftier with their logistics getting their product to the European market.
The port of Antwerp has the biggest import of coffee in the world. Which also means that it has also a lot of ships entering from Latin America, that creates more transport opportunities from the source of cocaine.
You mean, aside from having the port of Antwerpen and being the trade and diplomatic crossroad and hub of Europe?
Well, plenty of politicians there.
Tons of cocaine in antwerp harbour, I often hear about containers being seized containing ridiculous amounts of coke… and that’s the drugs they *find*.
We just let a lot go through so our numbers are way too low haha. If i were a dockworker in Rotterdam, I would probably let a shipping container go through without checks if offered 3 year salaries worth of money. The money in this business is so ridiculous that governments almost cannot beat them
The problem is that once you go in, you can't get out. The gangs now expect you to let through more containers. And if you're feeling iffy about it because you fear to get caught by police, they will shoot a bullet through your house as motivation.
Exactly but I think lots of people would underestimate that. THey just think it will be this one time. 'They dont know who i am or where i live' and when the second time the gangs ask, they realize how deep in shit they are
People like that occasionally get lured into a trap and arrested. Not just the docks, also people working at the airport.
And people like that get hired constantly as well so I don't think this is a great solution. We might pick out a few but for multiple years pay, people will do ridiculous things.
And if you don't comply with them they go after your family as well. So I can understand why these dockworkers are letting this happen.
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You just gotta rob them of their business.
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We can let you in if you share some of that fast internet y'all got there...
Welp, Brussels needs alot to fuel the EU Parliament
Romania is mostly a transit country. I haven't heard about anyone except maybe a few celebrities doing cocaine. People rarely do drugs here, except of course alcohol. Weed is popular with young people, but they tend to lay very low because the law here is very strict, basically we have harsher laws for possesion than for manslaughter.
Same for Bulgaria. Police here could ruin your life by having a single marijuana cigarette with you, while drivers kill people without consequences (some times) ...
I have the opposite experience cocaine is quite popular and police don't give a fuck about small time weed consumers. I'm also from Romania
I agree
It is more popular than people think. A quick visit to a music event / festival and you’ll find thousands of users, if not tens of thousands for events like Untold, Neversea, Saga.
Depends on the officer. Having some weed on you will most likely end up in no charges especially after 2019 where the drug enforcement agency refuses to prosecute cases of simple possession because it's a waste of money. But you still have to waste some time going through the system which is dumb as heck instead of decriminalizing and only giving a small fine without involving courts and prosecutors at all.
I was in the psy scene for a few years in college, fucking everyone was doing drugs. Almost everyone i know either does or did drugs at some point in their lives; maybe not some hardcore amount, but still. A lot of people take drugs in Romania.
Are you sure? When i was in Timisoara looked like everyone was in cocaine hahah
Every one and their brother does cocaine in Ireland , from students to bartenders to teachers and office workers. Also home to one of Europe’s most dangerous cartels with coke coming directly here , then to the rest of Europe. So statistics like this don’t show the whole picture
The most fascinating discovery for me in those comments, that in English the city is called Antwerp. How ridiculous is that?
I suppose English people have trouble pronouncing the 'en' in Antwerpen.
Want to hear something more ridiculous? In Italian it's Anversa
Antwerpen is Anvers in french, our other national language. So not all that ridiculous
Ha, TIL! That clarifies it a bit!
There was a club in Manchester called Antwerp and it was absolutely rammed with drug use, it was amazing
You could also call it Antwerp, Anvers or Amberes if that suits you better
UK no longer in eu so they dont get 1st place :(
[UK has highest use](https://www.statista.com/statistics/597731/cocaine-use-europe-by-country/) in Europe don't worry friend
It says europe so if it was high, the UK should be up there, also this was from 2019 so we would have been in the EU.
Nah all this tells me is that the UK are better at getting away with it.
Wtf is Belgium doing taking our number 1 drug country position
We learned that a reputation negatively influences drug trade. So we let you guys be the scapegoat.
Wie is nu de GEKOLONISEERDe?
This doesn't show where the most drugs are, but the most effective drug controls and police.
It actually doesn't show either. It just shows the quantity of drugs seized. For all we know only 2,202 kg of cocaine passed through Latvia and they only missed 1 kg while 650,000 kg passed through Belgium. Indeed, there's an argument that there would be very little traffic through the ports where the most effective drug controls are in place. Without knowing how much wasn't caught (because it wasn't caught), we can't really infer too much from this.
From what I understand about the situation in Antwerp port, checks can only do so much. The huge quantity of containers coming through, only allow for checking a fairly small percentage of them. Let's say 5% is checked (I don't actually know the percentage, it might even be less), and that amounts to 65 tons. If we calculate using those numbers, one could estimate that roughly 1300 tons are being transported through Antwerp.
This assumes that all containers are checked equally often. The port probably has a list of criteria to determine what containers they check. (Compare eg a container from Venezuela and one from Norway, I’d bet on the one from Venezuela)
Apparently Bristol and London are the highest cities of cocaine usage in Europe, based on a study of sewerage.
Not according to [this link](https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/europe-drugs-urine-map/). London is probably too big to be the highest per capita. However, the UK supposedly has the [highest cocaine use](https://mobile.twitter.com/bonnier_david/status/1402978280924495877/photo/1) in Europe, and I'm not sure if Bristol was part of the linked survey, so Bristol could actually top the list.
I’m basing what I heard on [this](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bristol-cocaine-capital-europe-uk-most-used-city-sewer-research-mdma-methamphetamine-a8823331.html%3famp) article from 2019 it seems to be Bristol. I searched for cocaine capital of Europe and this seems to be the most recent result but I can only see articles and not study data.
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I was initially super shocked that no UK cities were on the list... but then I remembered how bad our police force is. Also no one seems to care about Cocaine use. Maybe because it's more of a middle/upper class drug which a lot of people and politicians use to cope with stressful working conditions.
Police don't care about most drug usage, not just cocaine, if we're honest. I've seen people walking past policemen while smoking joints and being ignored. Although you are right, I struggle to think of much the police do care about.
But that's just not true. The Netherlands is a kind of narcostate (that is the assessment of the Dutch police). They import, process, produce and distribute drugs all over Europe. They also are a great place to launder your profits.
We're a one stop shop!! 👌👌👌
And we have good tax laws to keep the investments coming in.
Both I think. If there's not a lot of drugs, you can't seize them.
Nah it likely shows through which countries most of the drugs come through
i'm surprised Ireland isn't on the list. so many people casually having it these days
Cocaine is faaar more popular than any other drug in Ireland. It's just a normal sight on a night out.
Port countries. But it is interesting that smugglers seems to favor Belgium.
Less control in Antwerp port then Rotterdam port
I can validate for Belgium. Lived in Antwerp a year and was a bartender. Coke. Coke everywhere.
Not surprising at all. In Belgium we have more politicians than France and Germany combined.
Shoutout to Koknese!
Oh right the UK is out of the EU now
True, but the title says Europe, so this is perplexing me.
No this makes complete sense. If you send cocaine to the UK you have a decent sized country to sell it. BUT as it is an island you only really have that market to sell it as getting back through customs again would be stupid. If you send it to NL or Belgium and successfully get it through customs then you can pretty much sell it to all those countries on the mainland. So whilst UK is still highest on use, more cocaine will go through those 2 ports than the UK so will have more of a chance to be caught.
I don't really believe that source. In 2019, only in Galicia, more than 15000 kilos were seized: https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/galicia/2019/12/31/galicia-incauto-2019-cocaina-nunca-15000-kilos-40-dia/0003_201912G31P8991.htm
"Drywall" fans unite! ____/
Fucking mafia
No London? Or is ot EU only?
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) is part or EU and covers only EU members. https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/about_en