FLASH
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The sharp drop in the price of cocaine is forcing traffickers to reuse drug submarines that they previously sank after completing transports from South America to Europe, according to a senior Spanish police official.
Semi-submersible vehicles have been used since the 1980s in Colombia and other parts of South and Central America, but were first discovered in European waters in 2006, when an abandoned submarine was found in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia. Since then, ten such submarines have been sighted or seized by Spanish police.
While these boats, which cost around 600,000 euros to build, were previously used only for one-way trips, traffickers are now unable to remove them from circulation due to low cocaine prices. The wholesale price has halved to around 15,000 euros per kilogram in recent years.
"Previously, these boats would go to the Canary Islands for one-way trips and then sink," said Alberto Morales, head of the central anti-narcotics brigade at the National Police.
"The cost of the goods compared to the cost of the ship made this very profitable. But now the price of drugs is very low, so the organizations have changed their strategy. They empty the goods and create a fuel platform at sea, so that the submarines can return and make as many trips as possible," he said.
Spanish police and customs seized 123 tons of cocaine last year, compared to 118 tons in 2023 and 58 tons in 2022. In September, the National Police arrested 14 people and seized 3.65 tons of cocaine, which was allegedly brought to Galicia by drug submarine.
Morales said that narco-submarine activity has increased over the past two years, while the use of yachts for drug transportation has declined.
"Now organizations have two basic methods: Commercial ships and semi-submersible submarines, which allow them to transport all year round," he said.
He added that although ten submarines have been registered over the past two decades, the real number in operation is probably greater, given Spain's 8,000-kilometer coastline.
In addition, police have seen an increase in synthetic drug production in the country. More amphetamine, methamphetamine and MDMA laboratories have been dismantled in the past two years than in the previous 18 years. This year alone, over five tons of MDMA, 450 kg of amphetamine sulfate and 27 kg of methamphetamine have been seized.
Experts say that synthetic drug production has crossed the borders of the Netherlands and expanded to other European countries such as Spain, France and Germany, where there is more space for production and waste disposal, and the movement of ingredients and drugs is easier.
“Laboratories are everywhere, especially in rural areas, where there are fewer people and security is better,” said a senior official. He added that traffickers also use drones to monitor their operations and often pay local residents to keep an eye on foreigners and the police.
"The phenomenon of synthetic drugs has surprised us because of the number of laboratories we are destroying and the scale of production," the official concluded.
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