Three laboratories that produced large quantities of yaba pills (metamphetamines), heroin and Ice were dismantled by the army of Myanmar. The laboratories were located in the heart of the Southeast Asian Golden Triangle. Several European countries, together with EUROPOL, participated in an operation led by France and Finland against criminal groups trafficking online and offline in misused and counterfeit medicines.…
Several suspects of Montenegrin nationality are currently detained in Aruba. They were arrested following the interception of the vessel “Arresa” in which five tonnes of cocaine was discovered onboard. This seizure was the result of an operation led by the Netherlands and Colombia and involved several months of investigation that included Serbian, British and Montenegrin…
The first underground factory producing counterfeit cigarettes has been discovered by the Spanish police in the province of Malaga. The illegal factory had the capacity to produce around 3500 cigarettes per hour. This discovery, which EUROPOL, Lithuania, Poland and the United Kingdom contributed to, was made possible further to the arrest of 20 persons…
14 alleged members of a drug trafficking gang were arrested by the Spanish police in Catalonia following an investigation that started in December 2018 after the discovery and seizure of a large quantity of cocaine in boxes of A4 paper shipped from Brazil. The gang were thought to be laundering the profit of their trafficking…
The Ivory Coast navy seized 411 kg of cocaine and made 5 arrests following the discovery of a ship idling at high sea. The ship was seen to offload the drugs to a smaller vessel that came alongside. The West African coast is vulnerable to illicit drug trafficking, as previous seizures in Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau…
The Director of the EMCDDA presented the EU Drugs market report 2019 to the Committee on Civil liberties, Justice and Home Affairs at the European Parliament in Brussels. The director put emphasis on the fact it is a wake-up call for policymakers looking at the worrying trends of the illicit market which is fast growing, well…
The EMCDDA and the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) have discussed and agreed on the next joint work programme covering the period 2020-2024. The cooperation between the EMCDDA and the CICAD has been ongoing since 2000 and is framed by a Memorandum of Understanding. One of the major components of their cooperation is the joint…
Illegal landing strips in Venezuela are proliferating under the control of the ELN, the FARC and the EPL, also known as the “Los Pelusos”. Utilised to move drugs and the pre-cursor chemicals that support cocaine production, the issue of clandestine airstrips is a growing concern. Fueling parallel and illicit economies and underpinned by corruption and…
In the era of trade globalisation, the use of containers at sea has become and remains the most efficient way to smuggle illicit drugs. Container ships have doubled in size and can therefore carry more containers than 10 years ago and pressure to deliver the shipments on time has increased. Comparatively and proportionately speaking, fewer containers…
Following the seizure of 855 kg of cocaine in Suriname that was destined for the Belgian port of Zeebruges, the arrest of two individuals diving in the Zeebruges waters at night and the seizure of 200kg of cocaine in autumn a ship sailing to England, the Mayor of Bruges announced that there will be more…
