Police and customs investigators seized a record amount of cocaine in Germany in 2023. According to a preliminary forecast by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the drug discoveries total 35 tons, a BKA spokesman said. Last year around 20 tons were intercepted. The previous record amount was 23 tons in 2021. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) reported before Christmas that the total amount for 2023 could even be 40 tons.
“Since 2017, the quantities of cocaine seized in Germany have increased significantly,” said the BKA’s latest situation report on drug-related crime, which was published in October. In 2018, the authorities only discovered five tons. This means that the amount is expected to have increased sevenfold within five years.
30 tons seized in ports
The majority of cocaine comes to Germany via container ports from South America, including Bremerhaven and especially Hamburg. By December, more than 30 tons of cocaine had been seized in German ports, said a spokesman for the Hamburg Customs Investigation Office. The perpetrators often smuggled the drugs in banana or bulk containers, for example in the walls and spaces between steel boxes. In the spring, 920 kilos were discovered in a container of coffee in Hamburg.
To recover hidden cocaine shipments from ships, the criminals also used divers and underwater scooters. The “rip-off” method remains popular, in which sports bags containing drugs are thrown overboard and collected by accomplices. “The perpetrators generally use a well-organized logistics system that needs to be uncovered,” the customs spokesman continued.
Many arrests after decryption of crypto services
Thanks to the decryption of the crypto services Encrochat and SkyECC in 2020, numerous suspects were arrested and convicted in Hamburg and other cities. It was only in mid-December that the customs investigation office reported the arrest of five men who were said to have traded a ton of cocaine with a street value of more than 50 million euros. A trial against two 59-year-olds who are said to have organized the smuggling of a good 2.3 tons of cocaine through the port of Hamburg has been running before the Hamburg regional court since the beginning of March. Customs discovered the delivery hidden in canned asparagus in August 2022.
At the end of October 2023, representatives of security authorities founded a “Safe Harbor of Hamburg Alliance”. They agreed on a joint security center in order to better network the State Criminal Police Office (LKA), customs, the water police and the HPA port administration. “We have to do better because the fence has to be raised higher here in the port of Hamburg,” said LKA boss Jan Hieber. It is essential to prevent cocaine smugglers from seeing Hamburg as an easy transshipment point for their drugs and switching from Rotterdam or Antwerp to the Hanseatic city.
Campaign aims to deter port workers from helping criminals
The investigators therefore want to pay particular attention to the so-called harbor perpetrators. They are port workers or people with access to critical infrastructure who provide drug smugglers with information or help transport the cocaine. An awareness campaign for port workers is scheduled to begin next March to inform them about dangers and protect them from being contacted by criminals.
It became clear last summer that the fences in the port of Hamburg are not insurmountable. In June, small groups of young men from the Netherlands broke into the Altenwerder container terminal at least 15 times. Police and customs investigators suspected that the intruders were looking for a drug shipment. But that is still not resolved. The investigations against several suspects are ongoing, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office recently announced. No further information can be provided at this time.
The European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction warned in its 2023 annual report about the activities of the drug mafia and the associated violence and corruption. According to preliminary figures from police crime statistics, drug-related crime in Hamburg rose by 16 percent in the first nine months of the year. Violent crime in Germany increased by almost 17 percent in the first half of the year, as Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) said in Wiesbaden in November.
Federal situation reports from the BKA on drug-related crime. NDR report from the Hamburg Senate on drug-related crime
