Authorities in Europe are intensifying their efforts to disrupt the trafficking of drugs from Latin America into the lucrative European market. Officials were celebrating the success of a coordinated operation that led to major seizures and arrests, while they were also saddened by a tragic accident.
In recent months, Latin American drug traffickers have come up with new tricks to run their trade, with the Atlantic Ocean emerging as a major “cocaine highway,” officials report. Europol has warned that criminal networks are increasingly shifting cocaine trafficking away from major European ports and toward fragmented maritime routes across the Atlantic.
To disrupt the drug trade, international law enforcement agencies have responded with new operations centering on the eastern Atlantic corridor between the Spanish Canary Islands and the Portuguese Azores. According to the report from Europol, these operations led to the seizure of 11 tonnes of cocaine and 8.5 tonnes of hashish. It also saw the arrest of 54 people and the interception of eight vessels.
The operation, which was led by the Spanish Guardia Civil and coordinated through Europol, was conducted between April 13 and 26 and targeted criminal networks moving cocaine from Latin America to Europe through complex at-sea transfers that are designed to avoid major ports and traditional detection methods.
However, while they were announcing these successes, Spain’s Guardia Civil also launched an operation on May 8. The police were using a semi-rigid inflatable boat and an interception chasing a drug-running speedboat. The operation began around 0800 and was running between 60 and 80 miles off the Spanish coast and about 50 miles north of the Moroccan coast.
The two police boats collided while operating at high speed. One officer died immediately, and a second while being transported to the hospital. Two others were injured. The Spanish Navy was helping bring the boats to shore while the unions called for a full investigation of the incident. It was the second time in two years, as two other officers were killed and four were injured in February 2024 when a speedboat carrying drugs rammed the police vessel.
These latest cases follow a familiar emerging trend that has seen criminal networks increasingly moving cocaine offshore by moving drug shipments in multiple stages across the Atlantic. The trend revolves around mother vessels, including containerships, bulk carriers, and smaller non-commercial vessels collecting cocaine in Latin America and traveling hundreds to thousands of nautical miles into international waters.
The next stage involves mid-ocean transfers that see the drugs collected by high-speed vessels capable of long-range crossings, including rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RIB) and other fast crafts. In the final stage, the cocaine is transferred into smaller boats for landing at remote coastal areas in Portugal and Spain, often using beaches or small marinas to avoid detection. The scheme is designed to fragment risk across multiple vessels and crews.
Investigations by Interpol have established that the international waters between the Canary Islands and the Azores are increasingly being used by criminal networks for large-scale cocaine transshipment operations. The traffickers prefer the waters owing to the area’s remoteness and the operational challenges linked to monitoring activity at sea.
The Atlantic corridor now bears the dubious distinction of being a “Cocaine Highway” due to the growing number of vessels involved in moving cocaine towards Europe.
Since identifying the evolving modus operandi by the traffickers, Europol and other law enforcement agencies have intensified maritime coordination and operational cooperation to stop the criminal networks from completing their deliveries to Europe.
Get the latest maritime news delivered to your inbox daily.
“Criminal networks are becoming increasingly flexible and internationally connected. But our response is evolving fast, too. Over a two-week operational period, law enforcement dealt a significant blow to what is known as the ‘cocaine highway,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, Europol’s Deputy Executive Director of Operations.
Apart from Europol and the Guardia Civil, agencies from Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. were also involved in the operation, whose intelligence findings are expected to support investigations, identify linked criminal networks, and strengthen the targeting of maritime cocaine trafficking routes.
