Portugal appears in a UN report released this Thursday as one of the ports of entry for cocaine to Europe by sea and where part of the traffic will be managed by groups based in Spain, specifically in Galicia.
According to the Global Cocaine Report 2023, published by the United Nations Agency for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), there are two main channels for the entry of cocaine into Western and Central Europe: the first through ports in Belgium , Holland, Germany and the North Sea and a second via the coast and the ports of Portugal and Spain.
The report notes that Portugal’s location – and its long Atlantic coastline – make the country “a natural landing point for the unloading of cocaine from ships.”
The Algarve region, in addition to Madeira and the Azores, stands out for illegal drug trafficking in legitimate cargo and where cocaine arrives mainly through pleasure boats.
However, “significant quantities” of cocaine are trafficked through the main ports, such as Setúbal, where it arrives hidden in legal merchandise. The district recorded the largest cocaine seizures in Portugal in 2020, according to the report.
The document states that “part of the trafficking activity” of cocaine in Portugal “appears to be managed by groups based in Spain”, specifically from Galicia. Some of the cocaine bound for Galicia is shipped to northern Portugal, unloaded at night on a beach, and then to the Spanish region by road.
The United Nations Agency for Drugs and Crime highlights that in 2020, 400 kilos of cocaine were seized in the district of Viana do Castelo, on the border with Galicia, which makes it the fifth district in mainland Portugal with the most seizures of this drug.
In Galicia, according to the report, criminal groups “maintain long-standing ties” with Colombian groups to operate cocaine trafficking routes, with drug traffickers collecting the drug from ships off the Azores or Cape Verde and bringing it ashore on sailboats. or fishing.
Groups of Galician drug traffickers “are also active in redistributing” heroin by land to Portugal and Spain.
Source: TSF
