The most traded drug in the EU is cannabis, with a value of 12 billion euros per year, followed by cocaine with around 11,6 billion euros, reports Hina.
The impact of the international drug trade on life in European countries is getting stronger, warned the authors of the report by Europol and the European Center for Monitoring Drugs and Drug Addiction. Violence, corruption and the undermining of law and democracy are on the rise, said Europol chief Catherine De Bolle in The Hague.
And she emphasized: "Criminal networks have infected the core of our communities, they run through the fabric of our democracy and economy." They erode trust, fuel violence and create cycles of dependency and poverty."
He says a careful and unified response is needed to protect citizens and society from the omnipresent influence of this invisible enemy.
"Investigators have identified around 800 criminal groups that threaten the security of states," De Bole said, adding that drugs are one of the main sources of income for organized crime.
According to the report, Europe is key to the production, supply and trafficking of drugs. Experts emphasize that there is a large production of cannabis and synthetic drugs in Europe, as well as large quantities of cocaine smuggled from Latin America.
Although much more cocaine has been seized in the last 10 years than before, this has led to more violence in some cities, De Bole said, warning that gang conflicts are on the rise.
Balkan brothers in narcotics
Without a doubt, criminal organizations from the Balkans collaborate and smuggle large quantities of cocaine from South America to Europe, Australia and Asia, he previously wrote for "Vreme" in the text Brothers in narcotics Saša Đorđević, coordinator for Serbia and Montenegro in the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and PhD student at the Faculty of Security Studies in Slovenia.
However, Đorđević explains, it is challenging to assess the existence of the "Balkan cartel" because in public discourse it is often confused with networks, syndicates, criminal organizations, clans and groups.
Theoretically, the Balkan cartel should be an alliance of criminal organizations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, Croatia, Kosovo, Romania, North Macedonia and Serbia (or at least some of them) with a solid hierarchical structure and a prominent criminal leader. enterprise, which is able to manage the production, transport and distribution of drugs, as well as to launder money. Based on the analysis of public discourse, there are no vital signs that the Balkan cartel actually exists.
Cocaine from South America
In public discourse, the "Balkan cartel" is mostly associated with the cocaine trade, Đorđević writes. There are no indications that criminal organizations from the Balkans produce cocaine and thus carry out the entire chain of drug dealing. In fact, cocaine is obtained from Latin American cartels at the source of production and transported to Europe.
They have become incredibly prominent in this business. This also applies to people labeled as Balkan drug lords. Also, Europol mentions criminal organizations that are part of a Balkan criminal network, not a cartel, although they called the approach a strategy against the "Balkan cartel".
Multinational organizations and networks
Perhaps the fact that criminal organizations from the Balkans are often multinational is misleading. For example, the criminal complaint filed by the Slovenian police against a cell of a Montenegrin criminal organization that operated in Slovenia included 48 persons - 20 of whom are citizens of Slovenia, followed by Serbia (11), Bosnia and Herzegovina (9), Croatia (5), and Montenegro (2) and North Macedonia (1). It is a criminal organization whose members are citizens of former Yugoslav republics who can communicate without major problems.
Balkan groups are a mixture of ethnically limited criminal organizations driven by profit in various illegal markets depending on demand and organized in a cellular regime, which operate in a certain country and are mobile in many criminal areas, Djordjevic explains.
Organizations also create criminal networks. The common language and nationality most often unite criminals from the Balkans, so there are criminal organizations dominated by individuals from the Albanian-speaking area and the languages of the former Yugoslavia. They also cooperate with criminal organizations from Bulgaria, Greece and Romania.
Focus on the European market
Judging by the arrests and seizures of narcotics, Europe is the most common smuggling destination of Balkan drug organizations, primarily Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. There are 100 organized criminal groups from the Balkans in Spain alone.
There is also a reason for cooperation. It is possible to earn twice as much from smuggling cocaine from South America to Europe than to North America, even with the costs - while a kilogram of cocaine in the US is worth up to $28.000, it goes from $40 to even $80.000 in Europe.
The Balkans became part of cocaine drug routes, primarily through ports in Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Croatia and Slovenia. The Balkans is no longer just a transit zone, but also a region where marijuana and synthetic drugs are increasingly produced. In the Balkans, the states are still weak and have authoritarian tendencies.
Although the Balkan cartel still does not exist, at least based on the analysis of public discourse, Đorđević concluded, it is crucial that police cooperation in the Balkans be better and unencumbered by unresolved bilateral issues and political differences.
