EU Drug Market: Cocaine

The extraction of cocaine from the coca leaves takes place mostly in the three coca producer countries, which together are estimated to account for the majority of the global production of cocaine hydrochloride. [...] Thus, while the number of coca/cocaine production sites dismantled in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru decreased by over 50 % in the 2016-2019 period, the number dismantled in the rest of the world doubled in the same period (UNODC, 2021a). [...] A majority (54 %) of the samples from Colombia continued to originate in the three large coca-growing regions of the south-west, namely Cauca, Nariño and Putumayo, which are also reported as the main coca sources of the cocaine available in the United States (DEA, 2021a). [...] The quantities of cocaine seized in the West African mainland and neighbouring islands, together with those seized in Europe coming from the region appear to be small in comparison to the amounts seized at departure points in the Americas. [...] This is the case, for example, when concealing drugs in the container structure, frequently in the cooling compartment, which requires similar actions as the rip-on/rip-off method; or when using the drop-off method, which requires help from the vessel’s crew members to pick up the drugs in Latin America, or from a mother ship somewhere in the Atlantic, and throw them in the water close to a desire.