The German Minister of the Interior met with Justice Minister Lewandowski in Brasilia. The declaration provides for joint action against organized crime, the subject of a trip that also includes Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
(DW) The German Ministry of the Interior and the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security signed a joint declaration of intent in Brasilia on Monday (26/02) to deepen cooperation between the two countries in the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking.
The document also provides for actions to combat arms and human trafficking, money laundering and environmental crimes, through joint investigations between the two countries, the exchange of information between authorities and support for programs to train and improve police forces.
In Brasilia since Sunday as part of an itinerary that will also include Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser gave an interview alongside Minister Ricardo Lewandowski and emphasized Germany’s concern about cocaine trafficking – last year, the country seized 35 tons of the drug, mostly in the port of Hamburg.
“I view the massive import of cocaine from Latin America with great concern. This drug destroys people and delivers huge profits to organized crime,” said Faeser.
The Social Democrat also said she wanted to help reverse “the destructive influence of drug cartels” in the region and curb the violence they cause – also in Europe. This requires, according to the minister, “tougher and better coordinated international action against the trafficking of cocaine and other drugs”.
According to Lewandowski, Brazil is interested in applying artificial intelligence in the fight against organized crime, “especially in relation to drug trafficking and money laundering”.
Record cocaine seizures in European ports
Recently, the mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher, traveled together with the mayors of Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Antwerp (Belgium) to Colombia and Ecuador to discuss a joint strategy to combat trafficking.
Last year, cocaine seizures in the Belgian port reached 116 tons; in the Netherlands, the figure was 59 tons.
Ecuador, which was on the mayors’ itinerary and is on Faeser’s itinerary, has been in a state of emergency since the beginning of January, when President Daniel Noboa announced measures to control prisons and combat criminal organizations.
Germany seeks allies in South America against trafficking
German Interior Minister Nancy Faster is visiting South America this week in a bid to increase cooperation in the fight against organized crime. In recent years, transatlantic trafficking has intensified in a number of ports, something that is notable by the increase in seizures on both sides of the ocean. And with drugs, violence is also on the rise on both continents.
In 2023, the largest cocaine seizure on the European continent that year took place in Hamburg, with an estimated market value of 3.5 billion dollars. Other European countries traditionally with a smaller presence of organized crime, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, have also seen an increase in criminal actions, especially in port cities such as Rotterdam and Antwerp. In 2023, 116 tons of cocaine were seized in the Belgian port alone, a record figure, but one that corresponds to a small fraction of the actual volume shipped.
On the other side of the Atlantic, there has been a change of scale with a boom in the amount of drugs passing through Brazilian ports and reaching the European continent, which is measured by the volume of seizures, says sociologist Isabela Vianna Pinho, a doctoral student at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), who studies illegal markets and ports.
In addition to Santos, the largest port in Latin America, other Brazilian port areas such as Paranaguá have seen a big increase in drug shipments. In the region, in addition to traditional emission zones such as Colombian cities, Guayaquil in Ecuador has become notable in recent years for the strong presence of criminal organizations using its maritime routes for drug shipments. In Argentina, the port municipality of Rosario has experienced a similar phenomenon.
“The huge flow of goods in these ports makes it difficult to monitor and encourages criminals to use these routes. It’s strategic for traffickers to use these existing structures,” explains Vianna Pinho. The researcher recalls the volume of thousands of containers that pass through these ports every day, which makes verification difficult.
Increased violence and risk of narco-states
In January, the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, warned of the risk of the Netherlands becoming a narco-state in an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian. “Spurred on by globalization and international criminalization, the illegal drug trade has become more lucrative, professional and ruthlessly violent. The effects have been disastrous. In the last decade, the port of Rotterdam, the largest in Europe, has become a global transit center for cocaine,” he wrote.
According to Vianna Pinho, the increased sense of insecurity is related to the expansion of the scale of transnational cocaine circulation. “Historically, violence was concentrated in the drug-producing countries. Recently, there has been an expansion, and conflicts are affecting even European countries,” he says.
In recent years, disputes between criminal groups have led to shootings and executions on public roads in traditionally peaceful European cities. In its annual report on the cocaine market for 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pointed out that “the use or threat of violence by criminal networks is a growing concern in Europe”. In recent years, there has been an increase in serious violent incidents associated with organized crime, especially in drug markets, in some European Union countries and neighboring regions, the document points out
“The risks involved for European countries are well known in Latin America. More and more global cooperation measures are needed to contain them, since this is not a local problem,” says Vianna Pinho.
Increasing areas of activity
In recent years, the groups involved in drug trafficking in Latin America have started to expand their areas of operation, in a phenomenon similar to European mafias. In addition, they have started to operate in a number of countries, replicating models of traditional multinational companies.
“The drug market is changing. Drug trafficking groups have other sources of income emerging, such as illegal gold mining,” says Daniel Bonilla Calle, professor of international business at the CEIPA University Foundation in Bogotá. The advance of criminals into these other areas of activity is seen as an important element in a series of environmental problems, such as deforestation in the Amazon.
Extortion is another important source of funding for criminal organizations in the region, and the expansion of their branches of activity even involves the cultivation of avocados, in the case of Mexico. “We could say that today 60% of the funds continue to come from drugs, while 40% come from other income,” estimates Bonilla Calle.
“One of the characteristics of these organizations is their transnationality, which has recently been facilitated by technology, just as in the case of traditional companies,” says Bonilla Calle. “It’s not possible to attack organized crime without very well-structured networks of collaboration between authorities in various countries,” he says.
Increased cooperation
In Brasilia, after a meeting with the director-general of the Federal Police, Andrei Rodrigues, the German minister said that cooperation between the countries is already working well. “We want to deepen it even further,” she added. Still in the region, Faeser will travel to Colombia and Peru, the two largest cocaine producers in the world, and to Ecuador, which is facing a serious security crisis due to drug trafficking.
“I am very concerned about the massive import of cocaine from Latin America. This drug destroys people and delivers huge profits to organized crime,” Faeser said.
The minister said she wants to help “repel the destructive influence of drug cartels in the countries of origin”, referring to environmental destruction, violence and corruption. “Criminal groups exercise an unbelievable spiral of violence – even in the heart of Europe.”
In addition to Faeser, the mayor of Hamburg, Peter Tschentscher, was recently in Colombia and Ecuador together with his counterparts from Rotterdam and Antwerp to discuss joint strategies in the fight against drug trafficking with the local security authorities.
“Cooperation is important, but we know that traditional state measures often end up generating more violence. We don’t see many alternative measures beyond the prohibitionist stance,” says Vianna Pinho. In her view, the traditional approach to fighting crime, which focuses on seizures, has not shown effective results.
For the researcher, greater regulation of the markets could be a more effective alternative to the current approaches, as well as the need to increase cooperation for intelligence actions. In her article in The Guardian, the mayor of Amsterdam cited market regulation, government monopolies or provision for medical purposes as some of the possible alternatives for dealing with the issue.
ra/as (DPA, AFP, ots) *** Translated by DEFCONPress FYI Team ***