On the occasion of today's celebration of the International Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) and Regional Intelligence Liaison Office for Western Europe (RILO-WE) of World Customs Organization (WCO) presented the report "Seaports: monitoring the EU's floodgates for illicit drugs" which offers the first detailed overview of drug trafficking that passes through the ports of the European Union and which aims to strengthen the ability to monitor the evolution of the traffic in these key hubs for EU trade.

The report explains that between January 2019 and June 2024, more than 1,826 tons of illicit drugs were seized in EU ports or in transit to ports of which more than 1,244 tons were seized within the harbours. The largest quantity (491 tonnes) was seized in Belgian ports, followed by drug seizures in the ports of Spain (388 tons), Holland (195 tons), Italy (70 tons) and Germany (47 tons). Approximately 1,507 tons of drugs (83% of the total) were seized on container ships.

Cocaine is by far the most popular drug trafficked, accounting for about 82% (1,487 tons) of the total of the drugs intercepted in the period, followed by the resin of cannabis (260 tons). In the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam there are the largest quantities of cocaine were seized (approximately 443 tonnes and 181 tonnes respectively) and heroin (8.1 tonnes and 5 tonnes respectively). In Spanish ports of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Huelva, the higher quantities of cannabis resin (42 respectively tons and 30 tons). During the period January 2019 - June 2024 at least 21.7 tons of Captagon were intercepted in EU seaports, most of them from a seizure of 14.2 tons in 2020 in port of Salerno.

The report points out that the extent and regularity of the of large shipments (with an average of over 500 kg of cocaine and 1.3 tons of cannabis resin per shipment) confirm that criminal networks use EU ports to smuggle large quantities of drugs, in particular cocaine. That it also implies a significant degree of network penetration organised criminal offences in European ports, including the probable corruption of part of the port staff. In addition, in the there have been frequent episodes of violence related to the drug trafficking.