Cocaine seized
Quantities of cocaine seized reached record levels in 2019.
In 2019, the global quantity of cocaine seized increased by 9.6 per cent compared with the preceding year to reach 1,436 tons (of varying purities), a record high. The 90 per cent increase in the quantities of cocaine seized between 2009 and 2019 is likely a reflection of a combination of factors, including an increase in cocaine manufacture (50 per cent between 2009 and 2019) and a subsequent increase in cocaine trafficking, as well as an increase in the efficiency of law enforcement, which may have contributed to an increase in the overall interception rate.
South America continues to account for the bulk of cocaine seized.
Among the 15 countries reporting the largest quantities of cocaine seized in 2019, 10 were located in the Americas, 4 in Western and Central Europe and 1 in Asia.
The bulk of the cocaine seized worldwide continues to be seized in the Americas, which accounted for 83 per cent of the global quantity intercepted in 2019, the majority being seized in South America. The total quantity of cocaine seized in South America increased by 5 per cent between 2018 and 2019, to 755 tons, a record high, with most countries in the subregion, including Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Colombia and Peru, reporting increases.
Transformation of cocaine base to cocaine end product (cocaine hydrochloride) increasingly taking place outside the main countries of coca bush cultivation.
Most cocaine continues to be trafficked in the form of cocaine hydrochloride, the final product. Nonetheless, there are indications of a trend in the trafficking of intermediary products, most notably cocaine base, from Colombia to other countries in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and, according to media sources, Europe, suggesting that the final steps in the manufacturing of cocaine hydrochloride are increasingly taking place outside Colombia. The quantities of coca paste and cocaine base seized in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe, although still smaller, also increased far more than those of cocaine hydrochloride from 2018 to 2019.
Analysis of dismantled coca/cocaine production sites (including laboratories manufacturing cocaine) confirms these patterns. Excluding the three Andean countries in which most coca leaf is produced, there has been an increase in the number of countries reporting coca/cocaine-related processing, from 12 in the period 2010–2014 to 19 in the period 2015–2019, as well as in the number of dismantled coca/cocaine production sites, from an average of 64 per year in the period 2011–2014 to 93 in the period 2015–2019; such sites were detected not only in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)) and Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) but also in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Nonetheless, most coca/cocaine production sites continued to be reported in the three Andean countries (on average, 9,414 sites or laboratories per year in the period 2015–2019). Most of them were involved in the production of coca paste or cocaine base; the number of dismantled laboratories manufacturing cocaine hydro-chloride amounted to an annual average of 354 in the period 2015–2019.
However, while the number of coca/cocaine production sites dismantled in the Andean countries fell by more than 50 per cent between 2016 and 2019, the number of sites dismantled elsewhere doubled over the same period. Similarly, if only the number of laboratories manufacturing cocaine hydrochloride is considered, data from countries outside the Andean region show a doubling over the period 2016–2019, to 110 laboratories dismantled in 2019. The number of dismantled laboratories manufacturing cocaine in the Andean countries also increased, to 417 between 2016 and 2019, although the figure remained 20 per cent lower than in 2015.
Although most of the laboratories dismantled outside the Andean region seem to have been used for the secondary extraction of cocaine from the material in which it was incorporated for trafficking purposes, some have also been used to complete the final stages of cocaine hydrochloride manufacture; in a number of cases, the laboratories were used for both purposes. For example, the largest cocaine-manufacturing laboratory ever identified in the Netherlands was dismantled in a former horse riding facility in Nijeveen, a village in the north of the country, in August 2020. The laboratory, which had been converting cocaine base into cocaine hydrochloride using clothing impregnated with cocaine base, had the capacity to produce 150 kg to 200 kg of cocaine hydro-chloride per day, which is a very large quantity by international standards. The discovery of the laboratory led to the arrest of 17 people (13 Colombian citizens, 3 Dutch citizens and 1 Turkish citizen), which underlines the international dimension of cocaine-manufacturing activities taking place outside of the Andean region.
Quantities of cocaine seized increased in all sub- regions in the Americas, including North America, the world’s largest cocaine market
North America, in particular the United States, remains the main final destination of cocaine smuggled from the Andean countries. In 2019, the quantity of cocaine seized in North America rose by 2 per cent, to 277 tons, a record high. The United States continued to account for the vast majority (94 per cent) of the cocaine seized in North America. Nonetheless, the importance of the United States as the world’s cocaine market may be decreasing compared with a few decades ago: the share of the quantities of cocaine seized in the United States decreased from 49 per cent of the global total in 1989 to 36 per cent in 1999 and 18 per cent in 2019
In Central America, the quantity of cocaine seized rose by 19 per cent, to 144 tons in 2019. More than half of the total quantity seized in the subregion was seized by Panama, which also accounted for 5 per cent of the global total. This was followed by Costa Rica (2 per cent of the global total) and Guatemala (1 per cent of the global total).
The quantity of cocaine seized by countries in the Carib-bean more than doubled in 2019 to reach 14 tons (1 per cent of the global total). The largest quantities were seized, once again, by the Dominican Republic (0.7 per cent of the global total), followed by Jamaica and the Bahamas.
Sharp increase in the quantity of cocaine seized in Europe, with Western and Central Europe remaining the second-largest destination market for cocaine worldwide.
In 2019, Europe continued to account for the largest quantity of cocaine seized outside the Americas. The largest quantities intercepted in the region were reported by countries in Western and Central Europe, in particular Belgium (5 per cent of the global total), followed by, the Netherlands and Spain (3 per cent each) and France and Portugal (1 per cent each). Western and Central Europe accounted for slightly more than 97 per cent of all the cocaine intercepted in Europe in 2019, followed by South-Eastern Europe (about 2 per cent) and Eastern Europe (less than 1 per cent), where synthetic stimulants such as amphetamines and cathinones are more popular than cocaine.
Seizures indicate that cocaine trafficking to and across Europe has been increasing. The total quantity of cocaine seized in the region in 2019 increased by more than 20per cent, to 218 tons, a record high. An increase was observed in each of the subregions: 20 per cent in Western and Central Europe, to 213 tons; 64 per cent in South-Eastern Europe, to 3.8 tons; and an even larger increase in Eastern Europe, from 50 kg in 2018 to 1.4 tons in 2019.
Quantity of cocaine seized in Asia suggests that the relatively small cocaine market in the region continues to expand.
For many years, the largest quantities of cocaine seized worldwide after the Americas and Europe were reported by countries in Africa. In 2019, however, for the second year in a row, the next largest quantities of cocaine seized were reported by countries in Asia, which accounted for 19 tons of cocaine seized, a record high and 1.3 per cent of the global total. The quantity of cocaine seized in Asia quintupled from 2018 to 2019 and was – starting from a very low base – 28 times larger than the quantity seized a decade prior to that. The largest increase from 2018 to 2019 was reported in East and Southeast Asia (sevenfold increase) although the quantities of cocaine seized also increased in most other subregions.
Cocaine seizures in Africa show that the transit of the drug through the region may have increased.
The quantity of cocaine seized in Africa almost quadrupled from 2018 to 2019 and increased eightfold compared with 2009, to reach close to 13 tons, a record high (0.9 per cent of the global total). Around 11.1 tons, or some 86 per cent of the cocaine seized in Africa in 2019, was reported by countries in West and Central Africa, in particular Cabo-Verde (11 tons), followed by countries in North Africa (1.8 tons or 14 per cent of the African total), in particular Morocco (1.5 tons). Far less was seized by countries in Southern Africa (0.2 per cent of the African total) and East Africa (0.05 per cent).
Overall, the quantities of cocaine seized in Africa were likely to have been larger in 2019 than those reported by Member States to UNODC. Although a number of African countries did not provide annual seizure data, 25 individual drug seizures, 26 information on many of which are collated from media reports, point to significantly larger quantities of cocaine seized in 2019, potentially increasing the total quantity seized in Africa in 2019 to over 17 tons. The largest portion of the cocaine seized was destined for Europe.
Cocaine trafficking via Africa, most notably via West Africa, continued in 2020, although apparently not to the record extent seen in 2019. Individual cocaine seizures totalling several hundred kilograms were reported by Côte d’Ivoire (991 kg), Senegal (796 kg) and Benin (601 kg) in 2020.
Oceania saw an increase in the quantity of cocaine seized over the last decade, albeit a decrease in recent years.
The quantity of cocaine seized in Oceania in 2019 was five times larger than that seized in 2009. Nonetheless, in contrast to the situation in other regions, the amount of cocaine seized in Oceania has decreased in recent years, from 4.3 tons in 2017 to 2.1 tons in 2018 and 1.5 tons in 2019, the equivalent of 0.1 per cent of global seizures; decreases have been reported by both Australia and New Zealand.
Australia accounted for almost 95 per cent of the quantity of cocaine seized in Oceania in 2019 and New Zealand for the remainder; no cocaine seizures were reported by other countries in the region in 2019. By contrast, in July 2020, 500 kg of cocaine were seized in Papua New Guinea from a Melbourne-based criminal syndicate with links to Italian organized crime groups, which had been planning to ship the drugs to Australia. In September 2018, 500 kg of cocaine were seized in the Solomon Islands with destination Australia. Moreover, in July 2017, 1.4 tons of cocaine were seized on a vessel off the coast of New Caledonia, and, in February 2017, 1.4 tons of cocaine were seized in the Pacific from a vessel with crew members from Fiji and New Zealand.
The decreases in the quantities of cocaine seized in recent years in Australia are, however, challenging to interpret, as there are contradictory trends in indicators that define the dynamics of the Australian cocaine market. National household surveys point to a clear increase in the number of users of cocaine in the past year, rising from 2.6 per cent of the Australian population aged 14 and older in 2016 to 4.2 per cent in 2019. In parallel, wastewater analysis indicates a marked increase in cocaine consumption, from 3.1 tons in the fiscal year 2016/17 to 4.1 tons in 2017/18, 4.6 tons in 2018/19 and 5.7 tons in 2019/20. The decrease in the quantities of cocaine seized by the Australian authorities, however, may have to be seen in the context of the massive increase in the quantities of cocaine seized en route to Oceania, most notably some major seizures totalling more than 15 tons made by the authorities in Malaysia in 2019, of which two thirds were destined for Australia. This suggests that, overall, the quantities of cocaine seized by the Australian authorities taken together with those seized by law enforcement entities of other countries on the way to Australia actually increased in recent years.
At the same time, other indicators changed only slightly, often in opposite directions. Cocaine prices in Australia decreased slightly in the fiscal year 2018/19, suggesting a small increase in the availability of cocaine, while the median purity of cocaine decreased slightly, suggesting a small decrease in the availability of the drug. The pro-portion of injecting drug users reporting that cocaine was “easy” or “very easy” to obtain decreased slightly (from 64 per cent in 2018 to 62 per cent in 2019), suggesting a slight decrease or a stabilization in the availability of cocaine. However, information obtained from regular users of “ecstasy” and other stimulants points in the opposite direction, with those reporting that it was “easy” or “very easy” to obtain cocaine increasing, from 62 per cent in 2018 to 69 per cent in 2019, which suggests an increase in availability of the drug.
In any case, preliminary data based on individual drug seizures indicate a marked increase in the quantity of cocaine seized in 2020, to a minimum of 5 tons. This includes more than 3 tons seized in Australia, most of which was seized in New South Wales, the main entry point of cocaine into Australia.
Quantities of cocaine seized reached record levels in 2019.
In 2019, the global quantity of cocaine seized increased by 9.6 per cent compared with the preceding year to reach 1,436 tons (of varying purities), a record high. The 90 per cent increase in the quantities of cocaine seized between 2009 and 2019 is likely a reflection of a combination of factors, including an increase in cocaine manufacture (50 per cent between 2009 and 2019) and a subsequent increase in cocaine trafficking, as well as an increase in the efficiency of law enforcement, which may have contributed to an increase in the overall interception rate.
South America continues to account for the bulk of cocaine seized.
Among the 15 countries reporting the largest quantities of cocaine seized in 2019, 10 were located in the Americas, 4 in Western and Central Europe and 1 in Asia.
The bulk of the cocaine seized worldwide continues to be seized in the Americas, which accounted for 83 per cent of the global quantity intercepted in 2019, the majority being seized in South America. The total quantity of cocaine seized in South America increased by 5 per cent between 2018 and 2019, to 755 tons, a record high, with most countries in the subregion, including Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Colombia and Peru, reporting increases.
Transformation of cocaine base to cocaine end product (cocaine hydrochloride) increasingly taking place outside the main countries of coca bush cultivation.
Most cocaine continues to be trafficked in the form of cocaine hydrochloride, the final product. Nonetheless, there are indications of a trend in the trafficking of intermediary products, most notably cocaine base, from Colombia to other countries in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and, according to media sources, Europe, suggesting that the final steps in the manufacturing of cocaine hydrochloride are increasingly taking place outside Colombia. The quantities of coca paste and cocaine base seized in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe, although still smaller, also increased far more than those of cocaine hydrochloride from 2018 to 2019.
Analysis of dismantled coca/cocaine production sites (including laboratories manufacturing cocaine) confirms these patterns. Excluding the three Andean countries in which most coca leaf is produced, there has been an increase in the number of countries reporting coca/cocaine-related processing, from 12 in the period 2010–2014 to 19 in the period 2015–2019, as well as in the number of dismantled coca/cocaine production sites, from an average of 64 per year in the period 2011–2014 to 93 in the period 2015–2019; such sites were detected not only in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)) and Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) but also in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Nonetheless, most coca/cocaine production sites continued to be reported in the three Andean countries (on average, 9,414 sites or laboratories per year in the period 2015–2019). Most of them were involved in the production of coca paste or cocaine base; the number of dismantled laboratories manufacturing cocaine hydro-chloride amounted to an annual average of 354 in the period 2015–2019.
However, while the number of coca/cocaine production sites dismantled in the Andean countries fell by more than 50 per cent between 2016 and 2019, the number of sites dismantled elsewhere doubled over the same period. Similarly, if only the number of laboratories manufacturing cocaine hydrochloride is considered, data from countries outside the Andean region show a doubling over the period 2016–2019, to 110 laboratories dismantled in 2019. The number of dismantled laboratories manufacturing cocaine in the Andean countries also increased, to 417 between 2016 and 2019, although the figure remained 20 per cent lower than in 2015.
Although most of the laboratories dismantled outside the Andean region seem to have been used for the secondary extraction of cocaine from the material in which it was incorporated for trafficking purposes, some have also been used to complete the final stages of cocaine hydrochloride manufacture; in a number of cases, the laboratories were used for both purposes. For example, the largest cocaine-manufacturing laboratory ever identified in the Netherlands was dismantled in a former horse riding facility in Nijeveen, a village in the north of the country, in August 2020. The laboratory, which had been converting cocaine base into cocaine hydrochloride using clothing impregnated with cocaine base, had the capacity to produce 150 kg to 200 kg of cocaine hydro-chloride per day, which is a very large quantity by international standards. The discovery of the laboratory led to the arrest of 17 people (13 Colombian citizens, 3 Dutch citizens and 1 Turkish citizen), which underlines the international dimension of cocaine-manufacturing activities taking place outside of the Andean region.
North America, in particular the United States, remains the main final destination of cocaine smuggled from the Andean countries. In 2019, the quantity of cocaine seized in North America rose by 2 per cent, to 277 tons, a record high. The United States continued to account for the vast majority (94 per cent) of the cocaine seized in North America. Nonetheless, the importance of the United States as the world’s cocaine market may be decreasing compared with a few decades ago: the share of the quantities of cocaine seized in the United States decreased from 49 per cent of the global total in 1989 to 36 per cent in 1999 and 18 per cent in 2019
In Central America, the quantity of cocaine seized rose by 19 per cent, to 144 tons in 2019. More than half of the total quantity seized in the subregion was seized by Panama, which also accounted for 5 per cent of the global total. This was followed by Costa Rica (2 per cent of the global total) and Guatemala (1 per cent of the global total).
The quantity of cocaine seized by countries in the Carib-bean more than doubled in 2019 to reach 14 tons (1 per cent of the global total). The largest quantities were seized, once again, by the Dominican Republic (0.7 per cent of the global total), followed by Jamaica and the Bahamas.
Sharp increase in the quantity of cocaine seized in Europe, with Western and Central Europe remaining the second-largest destination market for cocaine worldwide.
In 2019, Europe continued to account for the largest quantity of cocaine seized outside the Americas. The largest quantities intercepted in the region were reported by countries in Western and Central Europe, in particular Belgium (5 per cent of the global total), followed by, the Netherlands and Spain (3 per cent each) and France and Portugal (1 per cent each). Western and Central Europe accounted for slightly more than 97 per cent of all the cocaine intercepted in Europe in 2019, followed by South-Eastern Europe (about 2 per cent) and Eastern Europe (less than 1 per cent), where synthetic stimulants such as amphetamines and cathinones are more popular than cocaine.
Seizures indicate that cocaine trafficking to and across Europe has been increasing. The total quantity of cocaine seized in the region in 2019 increased by more than 20per cent, to 218 tons, a record high. An increase was observed in each of the subregions: 20 per cent in Western and Central Europe, to 213 tons; 64 per cent in South-Eastern Europe, to 3.8 tons; and an even larger increase in Eastern Europe, from 50 kg in 2018 to 1.4 tons in 2019.
Quantity of cocaine seized in Asia suggests that the relatively small cocaine market in the region continues to expand.
For many years, the largest quantities of cocaine seized worldwide after the Americas and Europe were reported by countries in Africa. In 2019, however, for the second year in a row, the next largest quantities of cocaine seized were reported by countries in Asia, which accounted for 19 tons of cocaine seized, a record high and 1.3 per cent of the global total. The quantity of cocaine seized in Asia quintupled from 2018 to 2019 and was – starting from a very low base – 28 times larger than the quantity seized a decade prior to that. The largest increase from 2018 to 2019 was reported in East and Southeast Asia (sevenfold increase) although the quantities of cocaine seized also increased in most other subregions.
Cocaine seizures in Africa show that the transit of the drug through the region may have increased.
The quantity of cocaine seized in Africa almost quadrupled from 2018 to 2019 and increased eightfold compared with 2009, to reach close to 13 tons, a record high (0.9 per cent of the global total). Around 11.1 tons, or some 86 per cent of the cocaine seized in Africa in 2019, was reported by countries in West and Central Africa, in particular Cabo-Verde (11 tons), followed by countries in North Africa (1.8 tons or 14 per cent of the African total), in particular Morocco (1.5 tons). Far less was seized by countries in Southern Africa (0.2 per cent of the African total) and East Africa (0.05 per cent).
Overall, the quantities of cocaine seized in Africa were likely to have been larger in 2019 than those reported by Member States to UNODC. Although a number of African countries did not provide annual seizure data, 25 individual drug seizures, 26 information on many of which are collated from media reports, point to significantly larger quantities of cocaine seized in 2019, potentially increasing the total quantity seized in Africa in 2019 to over 17 tons. The largest portion of the cocaine seized was destined for Europe.
Cocaine trafficking via Africa, most notably via West Africa, continued in 2020, although apparently not to the record extent seen in 2019. Individual cocaine seizures totalling several hundred kilograms were reported by Côte d’Ivoire (991 kg), Senegal (796 kg) and Benin (601 kg) in 2020.
Oceania saw an increase in the quantity of cocaine seized over the last decade, albeit a decrease in recent years.
The quantity of cocaine seized in Oceania in 2019 was five times larger than that seized in 2009. Nonetheless, in contrast to the situation in other regions, the amount of cocaine seized in Oceania has decreased in recent years, from 4.3 tons in 2017 to 2.1 tons in 2018 and 1.5 tons in 2019, the equivalent of 0.1 per cent of global seizures; decreases have been reported by both Australia and New Zealand.
Australia accounted for almost 95 per cent of the quantity of cocaine seized in Oceania in 2019 and New Zealand for the remainder; no cocaine seizures were reported by other countries in the region in 2019. By contrast, in July 2020, 500 kg of cocaine were seized in Papua New Guinea from a Melbourne-based criminal syndicate with links to Italian organized crime groups, which had been planning to ship the drugs to Australia. In September 2018, 500 kg of cocaine were seized in the Solomon Islands with destination Australia. Moreover, in July 2017, 1.4 tons of cocaine were seized on a vessel off the coast of New Caledonia, and, in February 2017, 1.4 tons of cocaine were seized in the Pacific from a vessel with crew members from Fiji and New Zealand.
The decreases in the quantities of cocaine seized in recent years in Australia are, however, challenging to interpret, as there are contradictory trends in indicators that define the dynamics of the Australian cocaine market. National household surveys point to a clear increase in the number of users of cocaine in the past year, rising from 2.6 per cent of the Australian population aged 14 and older in 2016 to 4.2 per cent in 2019. In parallel, wastewater analysis indicates a marked increase in cocaine consumption, from 3.1 tons in the fiscal year 2016/17 to 4.1 tons in 2017/18, 4.6 tons in 2018/19 and 5.7 tons in 2019/20. The decrease in the quantities of cocaine seized by the Australian authorities, however, may have to be seen in the context of the massive increase in the quantities of cocaine seized en route to Oceania, most notably some major seizures totalling more than 15 tons made by the authorities in Malaysia in 2019, of which two thirds were destined for Australia. This suggests that, overall, the quantities of cocaine seized by the Australian authorities taken together with those seized by law enforcement entities of other countries on the way to Australia actually increased in recent years.
At the same time, other indicators changed only slightly, often in opposite directions. Cocaine prices in Australia decreased slightly in the fiscal year 2018/19, suggesting a small increase in the availability of cocaine, while the median purity of cocaine decreased slightly, suggesting a small decrease in the availability of the drug. The pro-portion of injecting drug users reporting that cocaine was “easy” or “very easy” to obtain decreased slightly (from 64 per cent in 2018 to 62 per cent in 2019), suggesting a slight decrease or a stabilization in the availability of cocaine. However, information obtained from regular users of “ecstasy” and other stimulants points in the opposite direction, with those reporting that it was “easy” or “very easy” to obtain cocaine increasing, from 62 per cent in 2018 to 69 per cent in 2019, which suggests an increase in availability of the drug.
In any case, preliminary data based on individual drug seizures indicate a marked increase in the quantity of cocaine seized in 2020, to a minimum of 5 tons. This includes more than 3 tons seized in Australia, most of which was seized in New South Wales, the main entry point of cocaine into Australia.
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