The price of cocaine is at an all-time low in Catalonia. According to the Mossos’ annual report on organized crime, the overproduction of this drug has resulted in a kilo ending up on the black market for less than 25,000 euros. According to police sources, it previously cost around 35,000 euros, a reduction of almost 30%. The decline is also noticeable in the price that the end buyer pays for one of the most commonly used illegal drugs, alongside cannabis. Consumers interviewed by this newspaper claim that the price of “premium” cocaine has fallen from 80 euros per gram to around 50 euros. Interior Ministry data shows that Spain broke all confiscation records last year with 57.7 tons, 17.5% more than in 2021, which was already historic and only comparable to data from two decades ago.
In their report, the Mossos d’Esquadra examine the cocaine market. They explain that although they only confiscated 113.3 kilos of cocaine (58.6% less than last year), investigations show that the drug is still very present on the streets: the small seizures total 12 kilos . That same year, customs surveillance at the port of Barcelona seized 5.2 tons, adding to the 800 kilos that the National Police found in two cocaine processing laboratories in the province of Barcelona. In total, the Mossos conclude, almost 6,000 kilos of cocaine were confiscated in Catalonia in 2022. Mossos analysts do not rule out that the “solar eclipse caused by marijuana”, a fight that everyone has been focused on, explains the small Catalan police have found a quantity of cocaine.
Across Spain, 2022 ended with 57,790 kilos confiscated, a figure 16% more than the previous milestone of 2006 (49,650), and the consolidation of an upward curve that weakened somewhat during the pandemic. In a single operation, the Guardia Civil found a cargo of 5.5 tons in the port of Valencia. “There is so much cocaine on the market that the price can only go down,” police sources summarize. After the ports of Valencia and Algeciras, Barcelona is one of the ports where most drugs are trafficked. “The statistics this year will break all records,” say customs surveillance sources.
The profits from the cocaine trade are reinvested in innovation, say the Mossos, who cite the use of semi-submersible boats to transport cocaine from South America to Europe as an example. This was the case with the drug submarine discovered in 2019 off the coast of Galicia with three tons of cocaine inside. Two years later, police discovered a semi-submersible drug boat with a capacity to transport two tons in a warehouse under construction in Málaga. The Mossos say it is the first boat of its kind made in Europe. In 2022, the National Police arrested two men in Campo de Gibraltar who designed, built and sold unmanned mini-submarines designed to transport up to 200 kilos of cocaine. In 2023, agents found another empty drug submarine in Galicia, almost identical to the one in 2019.
In Europe, drugs mainly enter through the ports of Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain. Between the three docks they account for 73% of all cocaine in Europe. In 2020, 214.6 tons of this drug were seized, the highest in history (17% in Spain), and it is estimated that this year it could reach 300 tons, given a “more diversified and dynamic” market, according to the Sources from Europol (the European Police Office) quoted by the Mossos d’Esquadra. All of this has also led to an increase in violence. The Catalan police cite as an example 66 incidents involving firearms or explosives that have occurred in Belgium since 2017 in connection with cocaine trafficking.
The Mossos also examine the international context to understand what is happening on the streets of Catalonia. They state that in 2021, an increase in cultivated hectares was noted in Colombia (43% more) and Peru (33% more) to a total of 315,000. But on the other hand, the number of dismantled laboratories in the producing countries has decreased, “while it has doubled in the rest of the world”. “This connection and the increase in seizures of chemical precursors used to obtain cocaine powder in various European countries, particularly in the Netherlands, indicate that part of the production of this drug has been outsourced,” say the Mossos. In Spain, 13 cocaine laboratories with a production capacity of between 3 and 500 kilos per week were dismantled between 2019 and 2022.
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They also show a “fragmentation of criminal organizations operating in Colombia dedicated to the export of cocaine,” which “has facilitated the establishment of new links with criminal groups different from the usual ones.” Organizations from Albania and other Balkan countries are becoming “exporters of large quantities of cocaine directly from Latin America.” Although drug shipments continue from Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia, police have noted an increase in cocaine shipments to European ports from Russia, China and the United States. In addition, producers use other intermediate countries as hubs in Central America, such as the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica or Panama, as stated in their report.
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