late 2015 The U.S Coast Guard has seized more cocaine off Latin America’s Pacific coast over the past 10 months than in the past three years combined, according to the federal government. The agency and its partners have seized 119,000 pounds of cocaine worth more than $1.8 billion so far this year....Commandant of US Coast Guard Adm. Zukunft added that about 900,000 pounds of cocaine is consumed in the United States each year. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/cocaine-seizures-latin-americas-pacific-coast-soar-n407496
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12-23-16
The Antwerp drugs scene is now largely controlled by Albanians, who smuggle drugs here through Southend, Essex, before distributing them nationwide – with a focus on London. Tests in European cities usually show London releases the most cocaine into its wastewater per person. But this year, the Belgian city overtook it. ...
And workers at ports in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela are making it harder for Belgian cops by slipping drugs into legitimate containers by breaking and replacing the security seal before they begin their journey. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/gangs-overwhelm-cocaine-capital-europe-9508753
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12-13-16 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/drug-capitals_zurich-is-europe-s-third-biggest-cocaine-hot-spot/42760246
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4-25-16 Peruvian cocaine tends to find its way to Europe through Brazil and Argentina, often with stopovers in West Africa. The UNODC reports that Colombian cocaine also moves to Europe through West Africa, sometimes after passing through Venezuela. Italy's 'Ndrangheta mafia is thought to control most of the continent's cocaine trade. ...
According to the UNODC, Afghanistan "has a virtual monopoly on the illicit production of opium, producing 6,900 tons in 2009 — 95 percent of global supply."...
"About a third of the heroin produced in Afghanistan is transported to Europe via the Balkan route, while a quarter is trafficked north to Central Asia and the Russian Federation along the northern route," the UNODC says. "Afghan heroin is also increasingly meeting a rapidly growing share of Asian demand. Approximately 15-20 metric tons are estimated to be trafficked to China, while a further 35 metric tons are trafficked to other South and Southeast Asian countries."
One recent development has seen more Afghan heroin — an estimated 35 metric tons per year — shipped across the Indian Ocean to parts of East and Southern Africa. The UNODC said it's also becoming more common for heroin smugglers to use their networks to smuggle hashish, methamphetamine, and other illicit goods....
The quantities of meth confiscated by authorities over the past decade reflect its rise. According to the UNODC, global meth seizures nearly quadrupled from 24 tons in 2008 to 114 tons in 2012. ...
A new development, according to Douglas and Soe, is that Indian pharmaceutical companies are supplying meth manufacturers in Myanmar with the necessary lab ingredients. Authorities have busted shipments of millions of pseudoephedrine pills crossing east from India through the porous border with Myanmar. The UNODC officials said the pills were recently manufactured, indicating they were likely made-to-order for illicit purposes rather than diverted from legitimate use.
But for the most part, the chemicals used to make the world's meth originate in China, where a booming pharmaceutical industry manufactures all the raw ingredients to produce "ice," the common name for glassy shards of high-purity crystal meth. According to data presented by the Chinese government at UNGASS, the country seized a whopping 20,338 tons of meth precursor chemicals from 2009 to 2015. Busts have shown that individual villages are capable of producing enormous quantities of the drug. https://news.vice.com/article/drug-trafficking-meth-cocaine-heroin-global-drug-smuggling
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