LISTEN – JUST ANOTHER KILO AT THE DEALERS –
APRIL 14, 2021 – A joint report by think tank InSight Crime and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, an NGO based in Switzerland, said that the combined cocaine production in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru – the three largest producers of cocaine in Latin America – doubled between 2013 and 2018. Traffickers have increasingly focused more on Europe rather than the saturated North American market, the report noted, due to its “potential for growth,” lower risks of seizure of assets, as well as the lure of greater profits. (A kilogram of cocaine in the U.S. is worth up to $28,000 wholesale, but valued at between $40,000 and $80,000 in Europe, the report indicated). A senior European police official said in the report that he estimates that authorities are only catching 10% to 20% of the total amount of coke smuggled into Europe. In February, in a combined operation, German and Dutch officials seized 23 metric tons of cocaine in the port cities of Hamburg and Antwerp, a record haul in Europe. Europol further warned that the Covid pandemic could lead vulnerable, legitimate companies to be used by drug gangs for for illegal activities, including money laundering.
Ireland, on the northwestern edge of Europe, has now also become a major hubin the international cocaine smuggling trade, including its airports and seaports – for delivery to Ireland itself as well as onto the continent. Michael O’Sullivan, the Irish chief of the EU’s anti-drug unit, the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre, warned: “We are facing a tsunami of cocaine. There is a huge market for it in Europe … All the cocaine that is used in Ireland comes from South America.” One of the biggest cocaine dealers in Ireland is Daniel Kinahan, whose cartel has been linked to at least 15 murders in the last decade. Last summer, Kinahan was reported to have fled the safe haven of Dubai for parts unknown.
