According to Europol and the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Mexican and European criminal groups are complicit on the continent.
Mexican cartels operate together with criminal groups from the European Union (EU) in the production of methamphetamine and cocaine on the European continent, warned a report prepared by Europol and the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
According to the report, Europe is not only a producer and source for foreign markets, but it is also a destination and transit point for other production centers, such as Iran, Nigeria, and more recently, Mexico. Furthermore, recent indications point to cooperation between Mexican and European drug producers.
“There is now more evidence that Mexican criminal networks are involved in supplying cocaine to the European market,” the report stressed.
Likewise, Europol stated that, “although most of the methamphetamine for the EU markets is apparently supplied by European producers, there is also large-scale trafficking” from Mexico to the continent, “most likely in transit to markets outside the EU.” EU”.
“Such smuggling is believed to be largely based on the concealment of legitimate goods transported in sea containers,” he stressed.
“Another characteristic is the industrial scale of production and capacity, with the involvement of chemicals that come from Mexican cartels and the development of crime as a service,” said the director of the EMCDDA, Alexis Goosdeel, during a press conference.
Goosdeel explained that traffickers, producers and organized crime provide services that allow the sale and equipping of any type of laboratory.
The report reported that methamphetamine seizures in the union have increased significantly in recent years, due to increased production in the EU and as well as located outside of it, in countries such as Iran, Mexico, or Nigeria, probably in transit through Europe.
It has also registered seizures on several occasions of several tons coming from Mexico. Although these “appeared to be destined for export to other global markets, there is a risk that demand will be driven by higher levels of accessibility,” he stressed.
“This implies a level of distribution and logistical collaboration between European and Mexican criminal networks,” he stressed.
In addition, smaller amounts of methamphetamine are regularly intercepted in postal packages sent from Mexico, some of which may be linked to online supply.
From 2010 to 2020, the EU Agency recorded a 477% increase in methamphetamine seized on the continent and said long-term trends “point to market expansion.”
“On various occasions, tons of methamphetamine produced in the Americas have been seized in the EU and most of the time it came from Mexico. And a worrying trend that we see is that specialist chemists operating in America are also active in the last year in the European Union ”, denounced Catherine de Bolle, executive director of Europol.
Europol warned that the “high profitability of the business” and “the emerging signs of Mexican criminal networks” could in the future cause “the risk of violent confrontations.”
Finally, he explained that the Dutch and Mexican collaboration promote the production of methamphetamine on a large scale in Europe.
Given this, he recommended initiating multilateral investigations into the trafficking of these drugs to the EU.
“Special attention and priority should be given to cooperation with the UN system, the US, Latin American countries (particularly Mexico), as well as China and India,” he concluded.