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Experts worried by rise of cocaine processing in Europe

Published:Friday | May 6, 2022 | 3:57 PM
Bales of cocaine weighing some 5,2 tonnes and a seized yacht are displayed for the media at a Portuguese Navy base in Almada, south of Lisbon, on October 18, 2021. Records amounts of cocaine are being seized in Europe while manufacturing of the banned stimulant drug is now taking place inside the European Union, officials in charge of fighting and monitoring drug use in the bloc warned on Friday, May 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

BRUSSELS (AP) — Record amounts of cocaine are being seized in Europe while manufacturing of the drug is now taking place inside the European Union, officials in charge of fighting and monitoring drug use in the bloc warned on Friday.

More than 214 tons of cocaine were seized in Europe in 2020, a 6% increase from the previous year and experts from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) believe that amount could reach 300 tons in 2022.

With a market retail value estimated at 10.5 billion euros in 2020 and about 3.5 million European citizens reporting having used it in the past year, cocaine is the second most used drug in the EU after cannabis.

Its availability in Europe has never been higher, with extremely high purity and low prices.

While most cocaine manufacturing still occurs in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, EU experts are worried about the processing now taking place inside the 27-nation bloc, particularly in Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands.

Between 2018 and 2020, 45 illicit production laboratories were discovered in the EU.

Speaking at a news conference in Brussels, Laurent Laniel, a scientific analyst at the EMCDDA, said that cocaine powder is often smuggled from South America to Europe in carrier materials such as charcoal and plastics, then extracted in local laboratories.

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