12:01 AM
A suspicious container alerted analysts at the Target Selection Center of the Anti-Narcotics Directorate, in the port area of Cartagena. The first thing that caught their attention was the destination: the city of Antwerp, in Belgium, commonly used by criminals as a cocaine collection and distribution center in the Old Continent.
Their hunch did not fail them when they checked the container on April 7. Hidden among several packages of cocoa, the uniformed officers found 2,000 rectangular packages, which contained two tons of cocaine, valued at 2,005 million dollars. According to the Police report, “with this result, the circulation of 205 million doses was prevented.”
The packages were marked with different symbols, such as shamrocks and car brand logos, depending on the poster that was waiting for it for redistribution in different countries.
Based on intelligence information and documents from Europol and the UN, EL COLOMBIANOS reconstructed the main routes of Colombian cocaine today, identifying in this criminal web the 11 main collection and distribution centers for this alkaloid, and what happens in those places.
Origin and dispatch of the drug
According to the most recent crop monitoring by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), by 2022 they had been detected in our country. 230,000 hectares of coca in 185 municipalities.
These populations are characterized by the presence of illegal armed groups that control production, both in planting and harvesting and transformation into cocaine hydrochloride in rustic laboratories.
The annual production potential is 1,738 metric tons of cocaine, with a growth trend due to the poor performance of the Colombian Government in the eradication of illicit crops: From the eradication record of 21,674 hectares in 2021, it was lowered to 2,766 in 2023, according to the Ministry of Defense.
The list of clients interested in the harvest is extensive, but in recent times the Mexican cartels of Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación stand out; the Balkan cartel, as a group of organizations (some enemies of each other) from Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia, among other countries in that European region, are known; the Soles and La Guajira posters (Venezuela); the Italian mafias ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra; the Devesa Clan (Spain and Africa); the Mocro Maffia (Morocco and the Netherlands); and coalitions of independent traffickers from Colombia, Ecuador, the United Kingdom, Türkiye, Russia and China.
For the exit of drugs, towards these international clients, there are air and sea routes that leave from the ports and beaches of Buenaventura, Urabá Antioquia, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta, Tumaco (Nariño), Chocó, Cauca, La Guajira, North of Santander and Llanos Orientales.
Venezuela is one of the main export platformsthanks to the expulsion of the DEA (2005) and the agreements between corrupt authorities, coca-producing guerrillas and drug traffickers.
An example of this is the extradition to the United States and subsequent sentence to 21 years in prison of General (r) Clíver Alcalá, handed down two weeks ago. It was proven in court that this Venezuelan Army officer was an architect of the Suns cartel and conspired with the FARC to ship thousands of tons of cocaine from his nation.
Another important export platform for the alkaloid is the port area of Guayaquil (Ecuador).
This city has been transformed into a business center for the global mafia, where local groups that guard the shipments (such as “Los Choneros” and “Los Lobos”) and foreign capital of dubious origin that finance the operation converge.
75% of Ecuador’s foreign trade is regulated from Guayaquilwhich is used by drug traffickers to camouflage their shipments in shipments of shrimp and fruits, especially.
The cocaine bonanza, which has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 pandemic, has that country involved in a whirlwind of violence, carried out by drug trafficking gangs sponsored by foreign cartels. President Daniel Noboa had to recognize the existence of an internal armed conflict so that the Military Forces could combat these groups.
America, Africa and Oceania
Although cocaine heading to North America usually stops in the Antilles and Central America, the main collection points are in Mexico and Florida (USA).
Distribution on American streets is run by the Jalisco Nueva Generación and Sinaloa cartels, although there is also participation from smaller Mexican groups and organizations from Italy, Albania, Cuba, Jamaica, Canada, the Netherlands, Russia and China.
The US remains the largest market for cocaine sellers, with nearly 7 million consumers of that drug.
The African route, although it has been exploited for three decades, according to DEA records, has recently gained currency due to the entry into action of the Mocro Maffia. This is what they call a group of drug trafficking organizations made up of members of Moroccan and Dutch origin, with a strong presence in the Maghreb region (African Mediterranean coast) and Muslim cultural roots.
Guinea Bisau, on the western side of the black continent, is another of the strategic points for the collection of the alkaloid. The White House has long denounced flagrant cooperation between the authorities and traffickers, not only to receive the shipments, but to transport them by land to the Maghreb. Extremist factions such as Al Qaeda and Boko Haram participate in this illicit trade.who sometimes act as transporters and other times as buyers.
In the Middle East, Dubai, one of the seven United Arab Emirates, It is an important business center for drug traffickers, who first saw there the opportunity to launder their assets between petrodollars and the financial system connected to the entire world. They then installed foreign trade, currency exchange and telecommunications offices, as facades to control trafficking networks in Europe, Asia and Oceania.
The Taghi Group, one of the most powerful clans of the Mocro Maffia, is very active in Dubai; as well as the Albanians of Kompania Bello. Links from two Colombian groups have also been detected: the Gulf Clan and the New Board of Directors of Drug Trafficking.
The furthest collection and distribution point is in Australia and gives access to the Oceania market, where A kilo of cocaine costs $200,000, ten times more than in Florida (US$20,000).
According to UN data, in the small continent cocaine consumption exceeds other drugs in the population range of 15 to 64 years and its market is over 750,000 users.
Distribution in Europe
Of the 11 global collection and distribution centers, five are in Europe, whose number of cocaine users is around five million.
Those preferred by the new generations of Colombian drug traffickers are the seaports of Rotterdam (Netherlands), the largest in Europe and the third in the world (after Singapore and Shanghai); and Antwerp (Belgium), the second largest on the Old Continent, with the capacity to receive vessels of up to 100,000 tons.
The extensive commercial activity of these terminals is used to conceal drug shipments, such as the one that was hidden in cocoa, discovered two weeks ago in Cartagena.
In those two cities there are cells of the most powerful cartels on the planet, which receive it and then distribute it to Central Europe, the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and Russia.
A similar scenario occurs in the collection points of the Costa del Sol (Spain) and Calabria (Italy)two of the oldest places for global cocaine trafficking, as they have been active since the 1980s, when the Medellín and Cali cartels took on the task of conquering European addicts.
Finally, Turkey is another disturbing collection and transit center for these clandestine routes, especially the port area of Istanbul, from where they are distributed to the Balkans, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania.
According to Europol’s Drug Market Analysis 2024, This business gives annual profits of at least 31 billion euros, of which cocaine accounts for 11.6 billion (37%), being the second most consumed narcotic in Europe, after cannabis.
Despite the efforts of world authorities, this trafficking does not stop. Production in Colombia is overwhelmed, as is demand in other latitudes. The inefficiency and corruption of governments in the face of this problem make it easier for it to grow year after year.
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