Drug traffickers are changing tactics to avoid Covid-19 travel restrictions

Drug traffickers are adapting to Covid-19 travel restrictions and border closures, moving from the use of human couriers to shipping containers and commercial supply chains, European officials have warned.

Law enforcement experts say the illegal drug market has been “extremely resilient” to the disruption caused by the pandemic, as traffickers have changed the ways and methods used in wholesale smuggling and increased the production of illegal drugs in Europe.

The cannabis resin produced in Morocco and usually brought to Spain was increasingly shipped to the rest of the EU for shipping using shipping containers, according to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction. 2021 Report on Wednesday.

It has also been reported that sea kidnappings of heroin smuggling soil from Europe to the Middle East have increased. The order said that in the second half of 2020 there were major kidnappings of cannabis and heroin in several seaports in Europe.

Highlighting the use of business supply chains, the report said the new forms of sedatives appear to have been shipped from China companies as bottled powders to Europe, turning them into finished products including tablets, capsules and e-liquid vaporizers.

Organized crime groups were also increasing illegal drug production in Europe, the report says. Despite the disruptions caused by Covid-19, cannabis cultivation and synthetic drug production appeared stable in the EU at pre-pandemic levels. There were also signs of a pandemic-related crack cocaine availability and a possible increase in use.

“We are witnessing a dynamic and adaptive drug market that is resistant to Covid-19 restrictions,” said Alexis Goosdeel, director of the Lisbon agency. “We are also seeing increasingly complex patterns of drug use as consumers suffer from a wider range of natural and synthetic substances that are very potent.”

Officials are concerned that the increasing insomnia and anxiety in the Covid-19 pandemic is that more people are condemning it with new types of sedatives sold by criminal groups and often marketed as “designer benzodiazepines”.

These drugs are not controlled under international law and are often sold as a “legal” substitute for prescriptions like Valium and Xanax.

It may be that users are unaware of the substances or doses they are taking, which increases their risk of severe intoxication, especially if consumed with alcohol or other sedatives, according to the EMCDDA.

“New benzodiazepines have been consolidated in the new drug market in Europe,” Goosdeel said. “It is likely that more substances from this group will continue to appear as users search for new drug experiences or alternatives to prescription drugs that are not available.”

In 2020, street-based retail drug markets were disrupted by early blockades, drug sellers and buyers also adapted to the use of encrypted messaging services, social networking applications, online sources and mail and home delivery services, the report says.

This raised the question of “whether the long-term impact of the pandemic could be on the further digitalization of drug markets”.