Criminal networks misappropriate container reference codes and employ a variety of unscrupulous staff to avoid drug checkpoints.
 |
| Port of Antwerp, Belgium |
The mafia is progressively invading European ports, which they employ to transport narcotics into Europe. Criminal groups are honing new methods of evasion, frequently exploiting and changing the codes of the containers themselves, with the assistance of unscrupulous staff. The most recent report by the European Police Office (Europol), in collaboration with the Steering Committee for the Security of the Ports of Antwerp, Hamburg, and Rotterdam, has concentrated on innovative approaches to try to intercept traffickers.
Seaports in the European Union handle over 90 million containers every year, yet authorities can only examine between 2% and 10% of them. As a result, it is claimed that at least 200 tons of cocaine have been transported via the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam alone in recent years, evading restrictions. The inability to oversee all containers poses a problem to law enforcement while also providing an opportunity for criminal networks that require access to logistical hubs to accomplish their activities.
Techniques that criminals use
Bribery of personnel of shipping companies, dock workers, importers, transport companies, or representatives of national authorities, and in general of all actors whose actions are required to ensure the entry of illegal shipments, is the primary method by which criminals can avoid controls. However, this strategy necessitates the bribery of a huge number of accomplices, which needs much too much planning and expenditure. To focus its efforts and reduce the danger of loss of commodities, organized crime is seeking for new methods of operation that involve the bribing of a far smaller number of people.
Europol's investigation examined multiple strategies that utilize container reference codes, which need only one individual to be bribed at the source, as well as bribing or infiltrating cargo extraction teams on arrival, who are then paid between 7 and 15% of the value of the unlawful consignment. After receiving payment for the delivery, the shipping firm issues a unique reference code (a PIN or a QR) to the container. The code confirms that the container may be released at the destination port and that the client can pick up their container.
Using mainly bribery, the criminals infiltrate the companies involved in the logistics process and obtain the reference code of the container in which they know the shipments of drugs will be placed, spent on the sly. With the reference code allowing the release, criminals access the drug container as if they were the legitimate customer. Once out of port, the drugs are mined for smuggling while the container is returned to its rightful owner, abandoned along the road or disappeared.
One of the most common strategies utilized by traffickers is the "rip-on/rip-off." It entails discreetly putting illegal products onto "clean" containers without the cooperation of the transportation firm. The drug is placed in a conveniently accessible location before being transferred with the rest of the shipment to an importer. Once reaching their destination, the narcotics are seized by extraction teams with links to criminal groups, either within or outside the port.
Once in European ports, another method is to move the cargoes from a container coming from a third country to one assigned to carry within the Union, because the latter are rarely examined. In this situation, port or unloading coordination is also required.
Another option is to clone the container: the registration number of the drug cargo is replicated, creating a "clone," which will later be the one subjected to the scanner check (while the original has already departed the port area). Even this technique, however, needs the assistance of insiders acting in the port of entry, ranging from port workers to irregular extraction squads. The latter frequently reach the port inside a "Trojan horse container," which conceals them by arriving a few days before the products. This technique is highly sophisticated due to the intricacy of the tracking procedure upon container arrival as well as the requirement for on-site support.
In general, the drugs may be concealed in bags or mixed in with legal commodities. (for example, hidden among fruit crates). It can also be physically implanted in blocks of marble, chemically entrenched in textiles, or buried in elements of the vessel such as the roof or floor. In general, traffickers gather several pieces of information from insiders to facilitate the safe transportation of illicit products in containers. This enables them to target shipments that are least likely to be examined, so finding the "green lines," or the safe ones.
Spain and the great ports of Northern Europe have historically been the principal European entrance sites. (Belgium and Holland). Antwerp, Hamburg, and Rotterdam, in particular, are the ports with the highest container influx in the EU and are the most severely affected by maritime drug trafficking. In reality, hiding narcotics among the massive flood of commodities and the numerous individuals with access to these ports is easy.
Moroccan or Albanian gangs, as well as the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta,' are examples of European criminal groups that operate along ethnic, family, and linguistic lines. Cocaine has gotten increasingly pure, and it is currently the second most popular drug in Western and Central Europe, behind cannabis.
Among the Italian ports where the Guardia di Finanza conducts the most seizures and checks is undoubtedly Gioia Tauro, which has become a crossroads for global drug trafficking. Add to it the harbor of La Spezia, where cocaine smuggling is commonplace.
Sources: TODAY, Anadolu Agency, The Brussels Times.