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In January, Europol published a new analytical report examining how organised criminal networks are increasingly diversifying their maritime cocaine trafficking methods to exploit commercial shipping and European port environments. The report highlights how traffickers continuously adapt their modus operandi, making use of containerised transport, complex routing patterns and insider facilitation to infiltrate legitimate logistics flows while circumventing existing controls.

According to Europol’s analysis, criminal groups are combining advanced logistics planning with corruption, document fraud and highly flexible operational tactics to reduce the risk of detection. These developments underline the growing sophistication of organised crime in port environments and reinforce the need for intelligence-led controls, targeted risk analysis and effective information sharing between authorities and supply chain actors, rather than blanket security measures that risk disrupting legitimate trade flows.

From CLECAT’s perspective, strengthening cooperation with EU agencies, including Europol, is key to enhancing resilience against organised crime while safeguarding the efficiency, competitiveness and integrity of European ports and supply chains. Also, the work of the European Ports Alliance which brings public and private partners together to make European ports more resilient against drug trafficking and organised crime is an initiative CLECAT is supporting. The initiative has already delivered tangible results

The full Europol analytical report Diversification in maritime cocaine trafficking modi operandi is available here.