A sharp increase of seizures of multi-tonne cocaine loads on pleasure craft bound for Europe from the Eastern Caribbean testify to the increasing capacities of law enforcement agencies. On 23 May, Portuguese Polícia Judiciária searched a 24 metre long pleasure boat that had arrived at Faial island a couple of days before. Hidden inside a…
Ross Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road marketplace on the dark web, through which more than US$200 million worth of drugs has been sold online, has been jailed for life in the United States. The Spanish police, in conjunction with the country’s navy, have seized almost 2 tonnes of cocaine headed from the Caribbean. Reportedly,…
Two highly regarded researchers in the study of drug trafficking and organized crime presented a radical analysis at last week’s conference of the International Society of the Study of Drug Policy in Ghent. Letizia Paoli (Univeristy of Leuven) and Victoria Greenfield (George Mason University) have a record of contributing to our understanding of drug markets…
Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s parliamentary speaker, has denied involvement in cocaine smuggling, following US reports that he is under investigation for trafficking and money laundering. A plane carrying over a tonne of cocaine crashed into the Caribbean following a pursuit by the Colombian air force. The use of caterpillars which feed on coca plants has been…
In the 1990s, Kenya, and particularly the cities along the Swahili coast like Mombasa and Malindi reported spreading heroin use. The switch from unrefined brown heroin which was known as ‘brown sugar’ and smoked, to white powdered heroin precipitated the emergence of injecting practices. Twenty years on the population of regular drug users has spread…
The Colombian government has halted the use of the herbicide glyphosate, and said it will find alternative methods of destroying coca crops The UK’s Border Force has seized approximately 50 kilograms of cocaine at the Port of Dover, hidden inside the bodywork of a Volkswagen van Ecuadorian authorities have seized 2.2 tonnes of cocaine at…
On 16 March 2015 a joint UNODC – European Union delegation visited the new Canine Unit of AIRCOP Joint Airport Interdiction Task Force (JAITF) in Praia. The Kennel is situated within the Cabo Verdean Judicial Police Headquarters compound, with whom the Praia JAITF is affiliated, close to the Praia International Airport. The Canine Unit is…
Over twenty years ago, Colombia embarked on a campaign of spraying farmland and forest with herbicides in an attempt to reduce coca crop production. Backed by the US administration of President Bill Clinton, the policy of spraying suspected coca crops became a central pillar of Plan Colombia. The US contributed funding for a fleet of…
Police in Berlin reportedly found more than 386kg of cocaine, which was shipped to 14 different Aldi supermarkets, inside banana boxes. It is the largest ever seizure of cocaine in Berlin to date. The Colombian government has announced it will stop using glyphosate, a herbicide deemed “probably carcinogenic” by the World Health Organization (WHO), to…
Enhancing skills in asset recovery and money laundering investigations was the focus of a specialised five-day training course for law enforcement officers in Latin America that took place from 20 – 24 April in Santiago (Chile). Part of an already established collaboration between the GAFILAT-EU project and the INTERPOL Regional Bureau for South America, the…
