2023-06-04 05:32:40
12:01 AM
The war unleashed by Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine caused changes in the routes of Colombian cocaine in Europe, but the drug traffickers are already devising new ways to introduce their poisonous merchandise.
The incursion of Russian troops began in February 2022, turning the Black Sea and the eastern Balkan Peninsula into an unpredictable theater of war.
In the last 16 months, submarines, radars, troops, boats, drones and aircraft have taken over this sector, which until then was used by drug traffickers to bring drugs into Eastern Europe, and as an alternative route to take it to the center and west of Old Continent.
In its World Drug Report 2023, the UN detailed that the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, especially those of Odesa, Yuzhny and Sevastopol (the latter city occupied by Russia since 2014), were the preferred arrival point for the maritime drug route from the Mediterranean, with a previous stopover in Turkey.
That route was exploited ad nauseam by Colombian traffickers and their international cartel partners, who had to improvise other routes after President Vladimir Putin’s decision to cross the Ukrainian border. What new paths did they choose?
Origin of the route in Colombia
According to National Police sources, the main criminal groups involved in the export of cocaine to Europe are the two dissidents of the Farc (Central General Staff and Segunda Marquetalia), the Clan del Golfo and the ELN.
These organizations obtain the alkaloid grown in Norte de Santander, Putumayo, Nariño, Cauca, Valle, Antioquia and Chocó.
They export it in association with international factions, among which are: the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels (Mexico); the Primeiro Comando da Capital (Brazil); the Los Soles and La Guajira (Venezuela) cartels; the Devesa Clan (Spain); the ‘Ndrangheta mafia (Italy); and the Balkans cartel, as this series of illegal organizations born in Albania, Serbia, Romania, Bosnia and Croatia are called.
By sea, the drug is dispatched in containers with fruit and shrimp, which sail from Buenaventura (Valle), La Guajira, Barranquilla, Guayaquil (Ecuador), Venezuelan ports on the Caribbean and Brazilian ports in the Atlantic Ocean.
In their transfer to Eastern Europe, before the war, the ships crossed the Mediterranean Sea and the Bosphorus Strait to the Black Sea, bound for the coasts of Ukraine and Russia (see the map).
That same route had stations in ports in Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey, to continue the journey by land to the Balkans.
Regarding the air routes, the planes that left Latin America usually made a stopover in West African countries and in Istanbul (Turkey), before landing on Ukrainian and Russian soil, to unload it on trucks.
The prolongation of the conflict altered this dynamic, although it did not reduce the flow of Colombian cocaine. Because?
current diversions
The UN report estimated that “Ukrainian ports have been used by transnational organized crime groups to diversify trafficking routes, away from the controls of the Public Force in Western European ports.”
Until 2018, the average annual seizure in that nation was 50 kilos of cocaine, but in 2019 it rose to 837 kilos; in 2020 it was 166 kg, still higher than the historical average, but less than the previous year due to the effects of the quarantine due to the covid-19 pandemic.
These figures show the increase in drug trafficking in the Black Sea, but given the danger that drones will destroy ships and planes, the merchandise is being diverted to the ports of Romania (Constanza) and Bulgaria (Varna).
From those countries, the drug continues its journey by land to Hungary, avoiding the Ukrainian border and that of Belarus, which despite not being directly involved in the war, is closely monitored by NATO due to its political sympathy with Russia.
In fact, that country accepted that Putin’s army placed nuclear weapons on its territory last month.
Regarding the maritime route that came from the Mediterranean, the shipments are being diverted towards the Italian peninsula and Greece, from where they begin the journey by road to the Balkans.
Something similar happened with air traffic, which previously made a stopover in Istanbul, and now does so in Athens.
According to the authorities, the conflict also caused an increase in traffic through other routes that feed Eastern Europe without crossing the Black Sea, such as the maritime flow through the Baltic Sea, bound for the distant port of Saint Petersburg (Russia). ).
The diversions increased the value of the drug in final markets, but not even that reduced the constant entry of cocaine, since Europe registers high levels of consumption. On the other hand, the activity of buying and selling by virtual means increased (see the attached note), since not even the threat of a nuclear attack seems to decimate the ambition of the drug traffickers.
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