A Europol report reveals how criminal networks have moved cocaine trafficking from large ports to the open sea. Offshore deliveries, chemical concealments and fragmented routes are transforming Italy and Spain into the new Mediterranean corridor of European drug trafficking.
Cocaine trafficking toEurope knows no setbacks. On the contrary, it evolves more rapidly than the control systems put in place by states. The latest report certifies this Spotlight Of Europolwhich describes a profound transformation of the ways in which criminal organizations operate: fewer containers in large ports, more open sea, more chemical concealment and a systematic fragmentation of routes. The squeeze on the main logistics hubs of Northern Europe – Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg – reduced the effectiveness of traditional trafficking, but not the overall volume of imported cocaine. The criminal networks have reacted by shifting the operational center of gravity: bypassing commercial ports has become a strategic priority. The sea is no longer just a transit route, but an autonomous criminal platform, where transfers, temporary storage and delivery operations take place. The report documents an increasingly widespread use of mother ships, carrying loads of cocaine fromLatin America without ever docking in Europe. The drugs are transferred on the high seas to smaller vessels – fishing boats, tugboats, yachts or high-speed motorboats – or left at pre-established drop-off points, to be recovered later. This technique allows you to drastically reduce the risk of interception in ports and break logistical traceability. One case cited by Europol concerns a network dismantled in 2025 thanks to an international operation led by Spainwith the involvement of Colombia, United States, Portugal, United Kingdom and the Portuguese Judicial Police (MAOC). The group used 11 motorboats For pick up the cocaine in the Atlantic and transport it to Canary Islands. Despite the use of encrypted satellite communications and coded languages, the operation led to 50 arrests and the seizure of almost 4 tons of cocainedemonstrating the industrial scale of these trades.
The leap in quality of semi-submersibles
Among the most alarming elements emerges the use of semi-submersibles. Once used for short routes in Latin America, these vehicles are now capable of crossing the Atlantic thanks to significant technological improvements. In March 2025, one of these vessels was intercepted near the Azores with 6.5 tons of cocaine on board: the largest seizure ever recorded in the EU in this way. A few months later, another semi-submarine carried it further 3 tons up to the coasts of Galicia. Vehicles with a low radar signature, difficult to detect and potentially destined to become autonomous, without crew on board. According to Europol, this evolution represents a turning point: the open sea becomes an increasingly hostile space for traditional law enforcement activities. At the same time, concealment techniques have reached unprecedented levels of sophistication. Cocaine is no longer just hidden among goods, but chemically incorporated in legal materials such as cardboard, plastic, fabrics, foods or coal. In some cases it is frozen and mixed with products such as yucca (a ornamental evergreen plant), making it invisible to scanners and computers drug detection dogs. Europol cites investigations that led to the dismantling of networks capable of hiding cocaine in cow hidesin food powders or within industrial machinery. In one case, 900 kilos of drugs were hidden in a stone crusher, requiring the complete dismantling of the facility. Other loads are secured below the waterline of ships and recovered by professional divers upon arrival. Methods that lengthen control times and increase the likelihood that the drug will pass the first line of defense unscathed. In this scenario, Spain and Italy take on a central role. Spain is the operational laboratory of the new maritime routes: Andalusia, Galicia And Canaries they have become areas of high criminal intensity, where deliveries at sea and rapid disembarkations often occur with the use of force. Investigations signal a growing willingness to use violence to protect cargo worth tens of millions of euros.
THE’Italyfor its part, emerges as alternative landing point and redistribution hub. Smaller ports, bulk ports and industrial infrastructures offer less controlled gates than large container terminals. Concealment in machinery intended for Northern Italy and the use of shell companies allow cargoes to enter the legal supply chain more easily. Second Europol, the convergence between Iberian and Italian routes is creating a Mediterranean corridor with high criminal resiliencedifficult to monitor and even more complex to dismantle. Bypassing commercial ports also means reducing dependence on corrupt intermediaries and officials, lowering costs and risks. But above all it means reduce financial footprints. Transfers at sea break down logistical documentation, favor the use of cash and informal value transfer systems, and fragment profits into micro-transactions. A model that hinders asset investigations and makes it more difficult to target networks as a whole. The conclusion of the report is very clear: cocaine trafficking runs faster than traditional law enforcement systems. Second Salvatore Calleri President of the Antonino Caponnetto Foundation «The picture outlined by the report Europol returns a clear and worrying image: theItaly it is increasingly consolidating itself as a central hub for international drug trafficking. A role that is not the result of a perception, but the result of structural dynamics – logistical, criminal and financial – now well rooted. A situation that cannot in any way be underestimated and which requires adequate responses on an investigative, judicial and international cooperation level.” It follows that, in the absence of a strengthening of maritime surveillance even outside the large ports, of financial investigative tools capable of intercepting increasingly fragmented flows and of further strengthened international coordination, the current gray areas are destined to persist. In this evolving criminal structure, Italy and Spain they thus risk consolidate itself as a permanent hub of European cocaine logistics.
