20 kilograms of cocaine valued at £1 million, bound for the Fermanagh area of Northern Ireland, has been seized in a port in Holland by Dutch authorities. 54 kilograms of cocaine estimated at £8 million, hidden within a lorry-load of Christmas trees at the port of Harwich, UK was seized as one person was arrested by…
Afghanistan poppy cultivation is estimated to have hit an all-time high despite the international counter-narcotics efforts. The US has spent an estimated USD $7.5bn in an attempt to curb the phenomenon. At present, opium-poppy is being cultivated on 209,000 hectares (516,230 acres) of land in Afghanistan, indicating a 36% increase from 2012. A report released…
This article first appeared on the RUSI website. On 9 September, Mexican authorities located 1,639 healthy coca plants growing on a plot of land close to the Guatemalan border. It represents the first coca plantation ever to be discovered on Mexican soil, and was followed by media speculation that Mexico might supplant Colombia as the…
In the early 20th century coca leaf was produced by the Dutch colonial authorities in Indonesia and by the Japanese administration in Taiwan for pharmaceutical purposes. After the Second World War coca production was once again restricted to the Andean core countries where the plant was first domesticated and where coca leaf is widely used…
From the Cocaine Route Programme and the Heroin Route Programme to the Global Illicit Flows Programme of the European Union For more than ten years, the Cocaine and Heroin Route Programmes of the European Union strived to address the challenges of an often-fragmented law enforcement approach along established illicit trafficking routes into the EU.…
Costa Rica cooperated with US Coast Guard on cocaine trafficking, resulting in significant seizures The UN reports a decrease in coca cultivation in Bolivia, falls to 11-year low Ahead of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on 26 June, Ruth Dreifuss and Jorge Sampaio scan the debate on international drug policy The…
