Drug smuggling: How cocaine makes its way to German ports

Cocaine smugglers discover German ports as transhipment points, and the quantities of confiscated drugs increase. Are there conditions in Bremen and Hamburg like those in Belgium, where drug dealers don’t shy away from extortion and murder?

Criminal structures have solidified in Bremerhaven – this is how Bremen’s port senator Claudia Schilling sees it when she describes the activities of the drug mafia in Germany’s second largest seaport. “Port employees are approached and asked, for example, to take a bag of drugs outside or put a container somewhere else,” reports the SPD politician. There are also known cases in which people have been threatened or blackmailed by force of arms.

According to the latest report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), North Sea ports are now the most important import hubs for cocaine to Western Europe. “Europe has become a much more interesting market for Latin American cocaine producers in recent years,” says sociologist Zora Hauser, who researches developments in the cocaine trade at Oxford University. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that more cocaine is consumed in Europe than in the past.

In addition, however, there is also the fact that many Latin American producers and dealers classify it as low-risk to smuggle the drug to Europe. Criminal prosecution, such as that carried out in the USA in producing countries, hardly threatens the cocaine smugglers by European authorities. Most of the time, they don’t even have to leave their home country. It is enough to have European partners – and there is no shortage of them. “These are often local groups that have the necessary network and the means to corrupt port personnel, for example,” says the scientist.

Relocated to Germany?

Under these conditions, transatlantic drug exports to Europe have been growing for years. Hamburg’s customs officers, for example, reported a record amount of 19 tons of cocaine confiscated in 2021. Relatively little compared to the 110 tons that Belgian customs discovered in Antwerp last year.

The example of the largest port in Belgium shows the price that a community may have to pay when it becomes a hotspot for organized crime. “The criminals are threatening judges, prosecutors and shipping company managers,” Belgian Justice Minister Vincent van Quickenborne told Stern magazine. “The drug mafia wants to attack decision-makers,” said the minister. He and his family live under police protection after a failed kidnapping attempt.

Van Quickenborne assumes that cocaine smuggling will shift more towards Germany in the future. The Belgian and Dutch authorities have upgraded their technology and staff to counteract the cartels’ activities. “Like water, cocaine takes the path of least resistance. Since we are making the port of Antwerp more secure, it is very possible that these main supply lines will shift to Hamburg or Bremerhaven,” believes the minister.

Bremen authorities alerted

The Hamburg economic authorities do not want to rule out “evasive movements of criminal activities”, the authorities in Bremen are downright alarmed. In a joint letter to the responsible Federal Ministry of Finance, the port senator and the interior senator call for reinforcements for customs in Bremerhaven, among other things. “We must now intensify our efforts to strengthen security before, in the worst case, the first fatalities occur,” the letter said. In its reply, the ministry lets it be known that it considers customs to be well positioned. There are no promises for any reinforcement.

The attitude of the Federal Ministry of Finance is met with incomprehension by the police union (GdP). “In Germany, customs is the anti-smuggling authority par excellence, but it is extremely poorly positioned for this task,” says Frank Buckenhofer, chairman of GdP-Zoll.

In view of the challenges that cocaine smuggling is already posing to German seaports, customs has neither enough staff nor the appropriate technical equipment. The authority’s management structures have also proven to be extremely sluggish in the past. “Customs urgently need to be more powerful if we want to counteract the activities of the drug cartels effectively,” said Buckenhofer.

“It is above all corruption that makes the import of cocaine into European ports possible in the first place,” emphasizes sociologist Zora Hauser. In Bremen, the Senate has therefore been using a reporting portal for almost a year, which port staff can use to give the authorities anonymous information about smuggling activities. So far, however, none have been received.