The amount of cocaine seized by police has soared in recent years in Portugal, which officials say has become, along with neighbour Spain, a main gateway into Europe for the narcotic from Latin America.
Police seizures of the drug jumped from around three tonnes in 2000 to 7,4 tonnes inn 2004, and as of the end of November authorities had discovered more than 17 tonnes of cocaine, more than any other narcotic this year.
”Portugal, and in a more general sense the Iberian Peninsula, is the big entry door for cocaine into Europe,” said assistant director of the Department of Narcotics Traffic of Portugal, Jose Braz.
Roughly five percent of all cocaine seized around the world is apprehended in Spain and Portugal, according to the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) which monitors the illicit drug trade across the globe.
While Spain has also seen a rise in cocaine seizures, it has not been as sharp as in Portugal.
As of the end of October, Spanish police had seized nearly 40 tonnes of the drug compared to 33,1 tonnes during all of last year, but below the record 49 tonnes in 2003.
”There are cyclical movements between Spain and Portugal. When Spain steps up its prevention and repression, traffickers choose Portugal more often and vice versa,” said Braz.
Most of the cocaine entering Portugal comes from Colombia, the United States State Department said in March in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
Some of these shipments transit through Brazil, a former Portuguese colony, and Venezuela, which has a large Portuguese population, the report said.
Portugal’s open borders with other European Union nations and its close ties to former colonies in Africa, especially the archipelago of Cape Verde which is becoming a transshipment point for drugs, appeal to traffickers, it added.
The nation’s vast coastline of over 1 700km also makes it hard to keep out smugglers, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said during a visit to Lisbon earlier in the year.
”Geographically Portugal is under threat,” he said.
Portugal’s appeal to drugs traffickers was underscored last month when police seized 6,1 tonnes of cocaine worth about €210-million ($250-million) from a warehouse just outside Lisbon, the nation’s largest ever single drug seizure and the biggest so far this year in Europe.
Police arrested six French citizens and a Colombian during the operation, which was carried out in cooperation with police from Spain and France.
Among those arrested was Michel Curtet (58) from the southern port city of Marseille, who was reportedly known to Spanish and French police as a leader of an international drug-trafficking and money-laundering group.
Curtet, who lives in the southern Spanish city of Marbella, was arrested on November 22 just as he arrived at the warehouse, allegedly to receive the load of cocaine.
The case demonstrates how greater information sharing among police forces is essential to fighting drug trafficking, Braz said.
”Cooperation among countries is the key to our work,” he said.
To foster greater ties with police in Cape Verde, the department of narcotics traffic of Portugal earlier this year staged an internship for three detectives and a police chief from Cape Verde at its Lisbon headquarters.
Last year police in Cape Verde, which lies near major north-south sea routes, seized 326kg of cocaine, the highest amount in all of Africa, much of it headed to Portugal. – AFP
