– You learn to work with cocaine before you learn to read and write, says one of the Colombian “cocaine chefs” interviewed by OCCRP.
He was flown to Europe to manufacture cocaine in a lab near Madrid. The man states that he received the equivalent of roughly 5,000 kroner for each kilo of cocaine produced. Although he was the supervisor of six people, he was far down in the hierarchy of the criminal network.
The gang running the lab took his passport, handled all travel bookings and arranged documentation. During his time in the lab, he was only allowed to leave the cocaine fumes once a day, at midnight.
Leaked documents
SVT has together with excavation editorial office OCCRPand over 40 other media partners, accessed leaked documents from the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office.
The leak gives a picture of how the international drug trade works.
• The cocaine is refined to a greater extent outside of Colombia and Latin America. A number of new labs are discovered every year in Western Europe. At a cocaine lab, which the police in the Netherlands raided in 2020, up to 200 kilos of cocaine could be produced per day with the help of 13 infected “cocaine chefs”.
• The gangs’ methods of smuggling the cocaine to Europe are constantly evolving. Often the drugs are hidden in legal products such as coffee, palm oil or fertilizers. There are also examples of when textiles such as jeans are impregnated with cocaine, which is then separated from the garments.
• The Latin American drug cartels no longer seem to have the same special position in the cocaine industry. In recent years, international networks, from among others Albania and Serbia, have established themselves in South America. Criminal collaborations across borders have resulted in new routes and methods for smuggling.
Record seizure of cocaine
The cocaine that is manufactured in labs around Europe also ends up in Sweden. So far this year, the Customs Service has seized over a ton of cocaine destined for Sweden – making 2023 the year in which the most cocaine has ever been seized in Sweden.