24-29 September 2023 - CRIMJUST, in collaboration with the Integrated Illicit Crops Monitoring System (SIMCI), brought together anti-narcotic police officers and prosecutors from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean in Tolima, Colombia for a unique specialized workshop on current trends in cocaine production and trafficking. This eye-opening event transmitted specific and up-to-date knowledge on current trends in cocaine production and trafficking and involved a practical demonstration of the processing of coca leaf to cocaine hydrochloride.
The activity took place in the facilities of the National Police Training School "Brigadier General Jaime Ramirez Gomez" - CENOP of the National Police of Colombia, where this institution and UNODC have in joint efforts and with support from the European Union built a research center equipped with the necessary infrastructure to offer this kind of specialized training.
The workshop was opened by the CRIMJUST Global Coordinator Mario Hemmerling, who expressed his gratitude to the Colombian National Police for hosting this workshop. He emphasized the urgency of dismantling the organized criminal networks that profit from illicit cocaine trafficking and underlined his preoccupation with the current evolution of the cocaine market. The world is currently experiencing a prolonged increase in cocaine supply, mainly due to an expansion of coca bush cultivation and improvements in the process of converting coca bush into cocaine hydrochloride. Likewise, the demand for cocaine is increasing. The flourishing of the global cocaine market implies a diversification of criminal actors.
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Candice Welsch, the Regional Representative of UNODC for the Andean Region and the Southern Cone underlined that the increasing diversification and efficiency of the cocaine market underscores the need to strengthen knowledge about the characteristics of cocaine production and trafficking, and to develop complementary transnational responses to organized crime. She concluded that activities such as this technical training are an ideal space to optimize prosecution strategies beyond seizures, strengthening transnational responses along cocaine trafficking routes, representing a crucial step in the ongoing efforts to tackle cocaine trafficking.
Roberto Valent, the Regional Director of the United Nations Development Coordination Office (DCO) for Latin America and the Caribbean highlighted the crucial importance of tackling organized crime for the United Nations Development Cooperation Office in the interest of sustainable development, as organized crime infiltrates social, political and economic structures on a global scale, weakening democratic institutions and systems. At the same time, the acquisition of criminal assets deprives states of funds urgently needed for development. It compromises human rights and exacerbates social and economic inequalities, fueling instability, exacerbating conflicts, and inflicting the greatest cost on the most vulnerable in our societies. Drug trafficking, the most lucrative form of organized crime, contributes significantly to this vicious cycle.
Following the premise “You can't fight what you don't know”, the training addressed issues such as chemical substances involved in the extraction and refining of cocaine, specialized infrastructure in the production of cocaine hydrochloride, safe methods of disposal of drugs and chemicals. This shed light on the technical and chemical processes involved in cocaine production. Also, economic aspects associated with the cocaine market, and current trends like the concentration of clandestine cocaine laboratories in certain zones and associated risks and threats for the region were addressed.
The workshop ended with a fruitful case forum, where the participants shared their own investigative approaches to cocaine trafficking. Notably, a follow-up case forum with the assistance of CRIMJUST was scheduled between several of the participating countries to support the exchange of intelligence regarding a major case that involves an organized crime network operating across various countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe, illicitly trafficking a myriad of commodities and moving vast amounts of money.
The Global Programme on Criminal Network Disruption - CRIMJUST is funded by the European Union and by the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). It seeks to enhance law enforcement and judicial counter-narcotic strategies beyond interdiction activities and to foster transnational responses targeting each stage of the drug supply chain.
For more information, please visit:
- Global Illicit Flows Programme of the European Union (GIFP)
- Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL)