(I)llicit Chains: Some New Hypotheses Regarding a
Changing Global Cocaine Market

Nicolas Lien, Gabriel Feltran

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Nicolas Lien, Gabriel Feltran. (I)llicit Chains: Some New Hypotheses Regarding a Changing Global Cocaine Market. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 2025, 7 (1), pp.20-34. 10.31389/jied.274 . hal-05535663

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# (I)llicit Chains: Some New Hypotheses Regarding a Changing Global Cocaine Market

NICOLAS LIEN ID

GABRIEL FELTRAN ID

*Author affiliations can be found in the back matter of this article

RESEARCH

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

Press

## ABSTRACT

International cocaine trafficking from South America has increased significantly over the past decade. Based on mixed-methods research, we hypothesize that this change has been driven primarily by the globalization of its logistics, which has led to relevant technical and political changes along the value chain. Today's global criminal logistics connect a wider variety of producers and retailers, ensuring a market without monopoly and monopsony, although very few transnational criminal groups control the center of the value chain. Their cooperation results in a virtuous circle for illicit accumulation, in which the constant improvement in productivity in South America also leads to an increase in consumer demand in Europe and, more recently, in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. We used a mixed-methods approach to relationally analyze coherent changes in the cocaine value chain in Latin American, African, and European countries.

## CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:

Nicolas Lien

National University of
Córdoba-UNC/SXXI University/
Aconcagua University-UDA, AR
ns.lien@uda.edu.ar

## KEYWORDS:

cocaine trafficking;
transnational criminal groups;
logistics; illicit chains; organized crime

## TO CITE THIS ARTICLE:

Lien, N. and Feltran, G. 2025. (I)llicit Chains: Some New Hypotheses Regarding a Changing Global Cocaine Market. *Journal of Illicit Economics and Development*, 7(1): pp. 20–34. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31389/jied.274
This article analyzes recent mutations in the (i)llicit value chain that connects the production, processing, and global distribution of South American cocaine. The literature on cocaine trafficking is spread across multiple research fields, showing a large number of actors involved in the management of drug distribution from producers to retailers and consumers (Sousa, 2004; Grisaffi, 2022; Nelson, 2023; Conover, 2024). The works also draw attention to the economic dynamics of this value chain (Gutierrez, 2024), and some of them start to touch on money laundering and corruption, as well as the social and political complications caused by drug trafficking (Leeds, 1996). Nevertheless, most of the works are discussing cocaine market impact in a specific place and in a given time, and very little has been said about the logistics of its global trade (Gootenberg, 2006; Vellinga, 2007; Sergi and Lavorgna, 2016), its protection markets, or the empirical mechanisms by which this value chain is changing (Arias and Grisaffi, 2021; Feltran, 2019; Sergi et al., 2021; Feltran, Vianna and Bird, 2022).

We explore the evolution of the cocaine supply chain from a local (Zeballos, 2022) to a global phenomenon (Allen, 2005; Kenney, 2007; Benson and Decker, 2010; Csete and Sánchez, 2013; Aning and Pokoo, 2014; Kalunta-Crumpton, 2015). In addition, it contributes to the broader debate on drugs as transnational social phenomena to be examined from market value chains, economic devices that transcend their illegality (Hirata, 2014; Feltran, 2019; Zeballos, 2022).

This study engages with economic frameworks that underscore the significance of markets, supply chains, and logistics, directing analytical attention to the activities that constitute these systems and their underlying organizational and operational structures. While acknowledging the presence of economic rationality within these dynamics (Albanese, 2000, as referenced by Zevallos, 2022), this rationality is understood as contingent, shaped by a range of factors influencing the logistical conditions of trafficking. Accordingly, the analysis extends to the actors and networks facilitating cocaine trafficking, such as protectors or service suppliers, complemented by a critical assessment of public policies aimed at addressing this multifaceted phenomenon.

We suggest that the gradual, and later exponential, global expansion of the cocaine trafficking chain over the past two decades can be attributed to the transformative impact of logistical advancements on its central operations.<fnref n="1" /> This chain encompasses thousands of small coca leaf producers, a more limited number of entities responsible for transforming the leaves into cocaine, a handful of transnational logistics criminal operators, numerous mules and couriers, and millions of retailers. It means that a small number of dominant criminal organizations orchestrate the market's transnational scale from the middle of the chain, connecting with millions of small-scale actors in production and retail worldwide.<fnref n="2" /> These organizations are internally diverse, adaptable, and increasingly professional. Recent transformations seem to allow them to sustain global operations and maintain consistent supply chains despite stronger State response.<fnref n="3" />

Logistical innovations, rooted in the evolving social relations and technical processes required to operate any transnational market, are made to dynamically connect varying points of supply and demand. For cocaine trafficking, the network of core transatlantic intermediaries emerges as pivotal in shaping, regulating, and contesting the power dynamics within contemporary value chains. The number of these core players is certainly very small, and several recent arrests show that they cooperate a lot. Seizures involving different mafias, national or regional, in the same transnational logistical operation are common.<fnref n="4" />

<footnote n="1">1 There is a 'stock' of drugs in Africa and drug traffickers want to flood Europe with it. El Confidencial. 8/8/2021 https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/andalucia/2021-08-08/narcotrafico-africa-europa-ruta-atlantica_321748/.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 The arrested cartel members are the largest cocaine traffickers in the Balkans. PTC. 11/5/2023. https://www.rts.rs/vesti/hronika/5189726/kokain-balkan-hapsenje-mup.html.</footnote>

<footnote>Balkan gangs lead global smuggling, report says. Balkaninsight. 24/7/2020. https://balkaninsight.com/2020/07/24/balkan-gangs-are-now-leading-global-smugglers-report/.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Security forces expose the global structure of the Balkans 'supercartel'. Narcodiario. 13/6/2024. https://narcodiario.com/2024/06/las-fuerzas-de-seguridad-desnudan-la-estructura-mundial-del-supercartel-de-los-balcones/.</footnote>

<footnote>Crime and insecurity. Late and ineffective approach, long-term results and diversity of causes. Santiago Magazine. 9/11/2019. https://santiagomagazine.cv/colunista/criminalidade-e-inseguranca-abordagem-tardia-e-pouco-eficaz-resultado-de-longo-prazo-e-diversidade-de-causas.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Thanks to SKY, a group that smuggled drugs and weapons was exposed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Vecernji. 22/06/2023. https://www vecernji.hr/vijesti/zahvaljujuci-sky-u-u-bih-razotkrivena-skupina-koja-je-krijumcarila-drogu-i-oruzje-1689694.</footnote>

<footnote>Latin American Drug Traffickers Evade Authorities With Unmanned Vessels and Chemical Innovations. Insight Crime. 22/7/2024. https://insightcrime.org/news/interview/technological-innovation-latin-american-maritime-drug-traffickin/.</footnote>
Over the past two decades, the global cocaine trafficking chain has undergone significant transformations driven by a combination of factors that have reshaped its structure and operations. These changes have fostered the emergence of a contemporary market characterized by the absence of monopoly or monopsony. Instead, the market operates through a complex network of interconnected actors, where the stabilization of international supply has fueled increasing demand along the value chain. This dynamic has been facilitated by logistical advancements that have redefined the social relations and technical processes underpinning transnational operations. As a result, the network of intermediaries has become central to constructing, regulating, and navigating the power dynamics that define this evolving market.

This marked trend towards stabilization of supply then provokes a global demand for the improvement of coca yields per hectare and the development of technologies for the production, processing, and/or transportation of South American cocaine. Likewise, the centralized and hierarchical control of the supply monopoly that characterized the intervention of the main Colombian cartels of Medellín and Cali since the 1980s, or the groups that succeeded them and the first columns of the FARC and related organizations, for example, in the early 2000s, has mutated into very diverse trafficking links around the world (Ticker et al., 2011; Garzón Vergara, 2012; Garzón Vergara, 2015). The production of coca base paste and/or cocaine in South America today easily meets the demand in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania by various ways.<fnref n="5" />

Our hypothesis is that it was achieved through logistical improvements and the emergence of more collaborative economic criminal forms between the most important intermediaries in the chain, namely the Colombian cartels, the Brazilian PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital), the Balkans Groups, the ‘Ndrangheta, and a few other partners.<fnref n="6" /> For ten years now, we have been witnessing the constant reconfiguration of a geopolitics of drugs (Sampo, 2019) that moves from the local to the global, longitudinally from west to east and latitudinally from south to north. As the scale of the market increases, attracted by consumer demand but also by strategies that link small and large criminal exporters in Latin America (Feltran, Vianna and Bird, 2022), prices fall along the chain, and actors able to regulate become more powerful. A specific trend is now visible in the consolidation of old global traffic routes and the emergence of new, larger retail markets in the urban centers and peripheries of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

We suggest that a more liberal global illicit market is now emerging, going beyond the cartel era. At the same time, this market is far from free. A few criminal networks, generally acting in the form of secret societies, regulate their dynamics at the center of international logistics, connecting a myriad of lower operators. In this new configuration, supply and demand are better coordinated, as are the activities between small and large criminal groups on different continents, forming a network of control points, bottlenecks, or centers of (i)llicit operations that configure an extensive global logistics system (Hagmann and Stepputat, 2023; Cipriani et al., 2023, p. 81). We are witnessing the consolidation of a sophisticated network of operators extending across numerous cities in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. This development has resulted in an expansive, integrated logistics system operating across multiple territorial axes and continents.

## MATERIALS AND METHODS

The article presents hypotheses born out of the dialog between two researchers who are attentive to the subject on a daily basis and who have discussed these hypotheses with various other researchers and collaborators, whether academics or those linked to drug trafficking networks. This article is not the result of a single research project but rather the synthesis of various research projects in which we have been involved over the last few years.

<footnote n="5">5 Mozambique and Cape Verde on smuggling and trafficking routes. Africamonitor. 20/8/2020. https://www.africamonitor.net/pt/politica/interpol-moccv-ja0820/.</footnote>

<footnote>AFRICA - Drugs in Africa: from transit countries to emerging markets for drug traffickers. Fides. 29/6/2024. https://www.fides.org/app/webroot/files/appendeds/185/primopiano_18589.jpg.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6 Brazilian drug traffickers send pure cocaine to Europe and Africa to avoid more rigorous control. O Globo. 10/9/2023. https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2023/09/10/narcotraficantes-brasileiros-enviam-cocaina-pura-a-europa-pela-africa-para-evitar-fiscalizacao-mais-rigorosa.ghtml.</footnote>

<footnote>Drug trafficking: members of the Brazilian PCC and the Serbian and Russian mafias arrested in São Martinho. Anacoa. 27/11/2023. https://www.anacoa.cov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Untitled-droga.jpg.</footnote>

<footnote>An Italian mafia member extradited from Brazil denounces the 'Ndrangheta's relationship with the PCC and the CV. 25/07/2024. O Globo. https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2024/07/25/mafioso-italiano-extraditado-do-brasil-delata-relacao-da-ndrangheta-com-pcc-e-cv.ghtml.</footnote>

<footnote>The collaboration “alla pari” between the PCC and the ‘ndrangheta, Pasquino: «Torino, San Luca and Guardavalle unico gruppo». Corriere della Callabria 02/01/2025. https://www.corrieredellacalabria.it/2025/01/02/la-collaborazione-alla-pari-tra-il-pcc-e-la-ndrangheta-pasquino-torino-san-luca-e-guardavalle-un-unico-gruppo/.</footnote>
Empirically researching the transnational dynamics of the cocaine value chain is not an easy task. The work requires collecting and analyzing a multitude of fragmented, incomplete, difficult-to-access, and often low-quality data. In addition, it is necessary to connect what is happening in different parts of the transcontinental value chain, seeking to induce transnational forms of operation and coordination mechanisms. Since 2015, our empirical research for different projects has been carried out in different Latin American territories (Brazil and Argentina in particular, but also in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Paraguay) and in Europe. In France, a longer research project that began in 2023 enabled 14 months of qualitative research in the port of Le Havre. In addition, he was able to carry out short field research (an average of one to two weeks) in French Guiana, while Nicolas was travelling to different countries doing interviews in Morocco, Spain, Portugal, England, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.

Before each of these different missions, we collected qualitative and quantitative data from secondary sources according to a criterion of relevance to the case being analyzed. Data mining with the collection of secondary sources such as journalistic material, previous research and/or academic reports, reports, and documents from official bodies paved the way for the research. The sources and data were classified from general to specific, according to their ability to explain more general dimensions (such as the form and structure of cocaine production, processing, trafficking, and redistribution operations) or more specific ones (everyday scenes or episodes involving certain groups or actors, such as the Brazilian faction PCC). To improve the search and collection of data, one of the authors uses the tool's scraper technique (https://webscraper.io).

To validate and expand their hypotheses, we analyzed the data produced from the development of a multi-site exploratory research process, which had the support and assistance of fellow researchers from different academic centers based in different countries (CEBRAP in Brazil, CEE Sciences Po in France, DIIS in Copenhagen, but also CEA and CIECS/Conicet in Argentina, UFSCAR, Brazil, IAIC in Spain and Center for Criminology, Essex University in England), which allowed us to visit different points in the cocaine supply chain located in Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France and, to a lesser extent, some other countries in South America and Europe. In each of these locations, around a dozen formal and informal interviews were conducted with key informants. Sometimes they were state border and customs agents, banking and real estate officials, members of the security forces, judicial officials, directors of financial entities and the stock exchange, port and/or airport officials, food exporters/importers, journalists, academics, and members of NGOs promoting the prevention of drug use, urban violence linked to drug trafficking, and/or the social reintegration of ex-convicts. In addition, the authors carried out non-participant observations in these locations, selected on the basis of what we have studied over the years (Feltran, 2019; Lien, 2023).

At the same time, the authors carried out axial coding according to the concepts identified (sink chain, hub, drivers of change, and logistical innovations, for example), assigning them properties and recognizing their dimensions based on the information we recognized. In addition, given the volume of information obtained only from secondary sources, a large documentary database of files of different lengths was generated. Consequently, one of the authors improved the code trees used and the content analysis of only these secondary sources through text mining and machine learning techniques supported by the open-source tool Orange: Data Mining Toolbox in Python (https://orangedatamining.com). Orange was developed by the Bioinformatics Laboratory at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia in collaboration with the open-source community. Orange is an open-source project).

As a main limitation, the authors point out that, despite the progress and very good results achieved by the methodological strategy advocated in this research, which was based on the implementation of data science technologies and observations and interviews in different countries, they recognize that obtaining financial and/or technological resources in a timely manner places a constant strain on the continuation of this type of research, given the dynamic nature of the phenomenon and the case addressed. Circumstances that also limited the extension of the research to other countries or hubs, which, inserted in this chain, respond to 'counterintuitive' expansion patterns (Sampo and Troncoso, 2023; Shuldiner, 2023) that would also have been of interest to highlight. These different 'counterintuitive' territories also represent a new alternative line of research to follow after this investigation.
FROM THE SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRYSIDE TO THE PORTS

The narrative surrounding Colombian cocaine is extensively documented and has been recounted through various lenses over the past several decades. In contrast, the dynamics of Bolivian cocaine remain comparatively underexplored. Over the last two decades, Bolivian drug clans have solidified their role as key producers and suppliers to lucrative and increasingly prominent consumer markets in major urban centers across Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina (Lien, 2020; Cipriani et al., 2023). These clans, operating primarily in the Bolivian departments of Beni, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca, and Tarija, have prioritized securing access to maritime routes to facilitate the transnational export of coca-derived products. To this end, these clans turned their attention to the opportunities presented by neighboring countries.

While the loss of Bolivia's access to the Pacific Ocean over a century ago remained a point of lament among drug clan leaders, they successfully identified alternative access points for transnational trafficking routes within these South American nations. These familial networks came to dominate the regional drug trade, excelling in the production of coca, coca base paste, and later, cocaine hydrochloride.

These criminal organizations were semi-hierarchical and highly structured, characterized by clear divisions of labor and the influence of charismatic leadership. Moreover, they augmented their operational efficiency through logistical innovations and strategic advancements. Over time, they recruited and trained members with specialized skill sets and technical expertise tailored to the production and processing of coca and its derivatives, ensuring their sustained dominance in the illicit drug market.

Consequently, criminal entrepreneurs from the southern region—including those based in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay—and criminal organizations, primarily from Brazil and to a lesser extent Argentina, have sought to establish robust logistical alliances with the leaders of Bolivian drug trafficking clans (Lien, 2023). Over the past decade, this collaboration between criminal actors has significantly facilitated the expansion of cocaine hydrochloride exports from Bolivia to retail distribution networks, reaching destinations as distant as Poland in Eastern Europe. Within this ongoing context, various trafficking corridors for Bolivian-origin cocaine have been developed and solidified.

One prominent corridor passes through the port of Santos, located east of São Paulo (Figure 1), where the PCC, a dominant local criminal faction, plays a pivotal role in coordinating and managing the transnational movement of illicit drugs (Feltran, 2018). As a result, criminal businessmen from the south of the region—Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay—and/ or criminal groups, mainly from Brazil and, to a lesser extent, Argentina, have been interested in establishing strong logistical cooperation alliances with the leaders of drug trafficking clans in Bolivia (Lien, 2023). This situation of cooperation and support between criminal groups and actors has made it possible over the past decade to increase the export of cocaine hydrochloride from Bolivia to retail distribution networks in areas as far away as western and eastern Europe.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

Lien and Feltran
Journal of Illicit
Economies and
Development
DOI: 10.31389/jied.274

<caption>**Figure 1** Local tugboats (pilots) help with the departure of the MSC shipping company freighter.</caption>

Fieldwork Nicolas Lien. Port of Santos, Brazil September 2022.
In the last eight years, the activities of the PCC in the Port of Santos have stimulated the frequent use of the territory of São Paulo as an efficient and strategic logistical point or passage (de Abreu, 2017). It is a place where the PCC develops and uses its own material and technical resources, mainly to carry out operations of contamination with cocaine hydrochloride of cargoes transported in maritime containers, in order to clandestinely transport the drug to Europe and/or North Africa, among other regions. In Bolivia, for example, drugs are concealed in shipments of grain, coal, and/or wood and transported by land and air through the border states of Brazil to various transshipment points in the interior of the state of São Paulo. It is common that, at these points, the cocaine base paste is purified to produce hydrochloride, which is then received and/or stored at various locations near the port of Santos, waiting for the right moment to be introduced into the cargo transported in maritime containers.

This nerve center for logistical transshipment, located in the surroundings of the Port of Santos, is sometimes identified as the ‘Peixaria’ (Fishing Shop). Many of the workers involved at this level of the chain would be port employees, or manual laborers and residents of the Guarujá, São Vicente, or neighboring Santos areas. All of them act with relative autonomy and with the disciplinary support of the criminal group, facing a complex task, not far from problems and conflicts. Therefore, the discipline and knowledge of the information regarding who, how, where, and when to introduce cocaine among the loads previously identified and selected among hundreds of maritime containers is the logistical innovation of the São Paulo faction operating in the port of Santos (Freire Medeiros and Pinho, 2024).

These continuous innovations reflect the adaptive responses of criminal organizations to logistical challenges posed by heightened security measures. These measures include increased port controls, the implementation of scanners for monitoring the interiors of maritime containers, and intensified police operations at the Port of Santos aimed at curtailing the activities of the PCC within this facility. In response, the PCC has been compelled to diversify and expand this trafficking corridor across a much broader coastal region. As part of this regional expansion, multiple seaports in northeastern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina have reportedly been incorporated as new access points for cocaine destined for international maritime transport.

A notable development involves maritime containers originating from Argentine ports, which are believed to have been contaminated with cocaine in Paraguay, a territory where the PCC has maintained a significant presence since 2000 and where it has been hegemonic since 2016. Furthermore, these containers are often transported via barges navigating the Paraná-Paraguay waterway, highlighting the group's strategic use of regional waterways to circumvent heightened enforcement measures.

The purpose of all this engineering and use of the material conditions of the region is to bring together the production of coca, base paste, and hydrochloride with the access points for the international transportation of cocaine, based on the management of strategic information. Furthermore, they demand that the collaborators of the São Paulo faction of the PCC operate convinced of the effectiveness of this dynamic way of intervening in cocaine trafficking, that is, that they act based on the precepts and discipline taught by the cell or unit of the PCC.

The diversification of trafficking routes and modalities, which created enormous technical capacity in logistics, was fundamental to the PCC's gradual emergence as a major player in the transatlantic cocaine trade. The hegemonic expansion of the PCC faction starts in this 'Conosur' region and is based on its efficient logistical operation of outbound cocaine shipments from South America. In addition, the positive results of the operations in which the PCC cell or unit responsible for cocaine trafficking (called 'Sintonia do Progresso'; see Feltran, 2018) was involved were crucial to the group's legitimacy vis-à-vis other criminal groups and gave it a position of high prestige in the cocaine world.

The prominence achieved by the PCC within the global drug trafficking market elevated its status to that of an emerging global intermediary, underpinned by a distinctive mode of service provision. This service can be conceptualized as the disciplined management of alternative drug distribution points. However, rather than establishing a complete monopoly, this strategy enabled the group to enhance its competitive position while allowing for the coexistence of rival operators. The PCC has always had a strategy of making itself indispensable and then offering partnerships to other criminal organizations (Feltran, 2018). Furthermore, its corridors and routes often overlaid pre-existing networks, contributing to greater stability in the global market by ensuring a consistent flow of cocaine trafficking.
This sophisticated system of relationship management and operational strategies, orchestrated by a specialized unit or cell within the PCC faction and implemented through an extensive network of collaborators, has been a pivotal factor in the rapid expansion of cocaine trafficking from South America to other continents over the past decade. Such organizational engineering has enabled the sustained growth and diversification of trafficking networks, playing a central role in transforming global drug distribution dynamics. Having studied the Brazilian PCC expansion since the mid-2000s, it becomes evident that the organization has been instrumental in driving these logistical innovations, particularly after 2014. This influence has been facilitated by the PCC's structure as a secret society (Feltran, 2018), which fosters trust in transnational markets. Within this structure, autonomous economic actors are bound by fraternal ties and sponsorships, creating a cohesive and reliable network. It is no coincidence that many traditional transnational economic organizations, as well as various illicit groups—such as numerous Chinese triads, a significant Russian mafia, Nigerian fraternities, and the PCC in Brazil—are organized as secret fraternities, reinforcing their effectiveness in global operations.

## COCAINE FLOWS INTO EUROPE ON A LARGE SCALE, SERVING AS A GATEWAY TO OTHER CONTINENTS

The shipment of goods in maritime containers aboard cargo ships through overseas territories is a recurring scene linked to contemporary communication and trade systems. At the same time, the trafficking of Colombian cocaine, hidden among shipments of fruit, grain, wood, meat, and fish destined for European metropolises, has a solid history of its own, developed from the 1980s to the present. These parallel operations of shipments of licit and illicit products from South America to Europe, across the Atlantic, give life to what the merchant navy recognizes as the fruit route. For some international illegal businessmen, it was time to connect these histories, routes and economic activities.

The primary and major corridor for cocaine transportation is well established in northern South America, connecting Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Suriname with the Caribbean, the Pacific (flowing to Mexico and the U.S. East Coast), and the North Atlantic, ultimately leading to major U.S. West Coast and European ports. Key entry points in Europe include Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Le Havre, and Antwerp, and in the North, Algeciras, Valencia, and Barcelona, particularly linking central and southern Europe.

A second significant path, known as Highway 10 or Parallel 10, puts in contact criminals in Peru and Bolivia, extending through Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. From there, it continues toward southern and central Africa, crossing the West African coast, the Sahel, and the Maghreb, before entering Europe via the Mediterranean.

A third notable corridor, currently in extensive use, traverses central South America. It links Peru and Bolivia to central and northeastern Brazil, proceeding to various archipelagos in the central and northern Atlantic Ocean, and ultimately reaching southern Europe, particularly Portugal and Spain (Figure 2). All those paths can be used by the PCC in its logistical operation in partnership with other international criminal actors.

Logistics connect things. Our analytical proposal here is that criminal groups, criminal entrepreneurs, and their collaborators in different South American countries begin to connect different corridors that make their way through the ocean. This is what makes the business global. Today, once the cargo is contaminated with cocaine, it can go anywhere. For our interlocutors in the field, a route is no longer a path in space. A route is simply a series of contacts. Since these contacts are now all over the globe, and since it is possible to connect them through cooperation between different groups at the center of the chain, there are possible routes everywhere.

Central to the geopolitics of cocaine is the fact that global trafficking chains are multiple and can be constantly reconfigured. As a result, these corridors contract, expand, and/or intermingle when needed. To this end, criminal groups such as the PCC, together with criminal businessmen and their collaborators from different continents, can appropriate the logistical infrastructure traditionally used to transport fruit and vegetable products produced in South America, as well as many other possibilities. Another key factor in the existence of trafficking networks and the consolidation of drug corridors is the technological sophistication of the methods used.
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2** Maritime container unloading terminal.
Fieldwork Nicolas Lien. Port of Malaga, Spain. May 2023.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3** Unloading area for refrigerated containers with frozen products.
Fieldwork Nicolas Lien. Port of Malaga, Spain. May 2023.</figcaption></figure>

Although the rip-on/rip-off technique is most commonly used to introduce and extract cocaine from maritime cargo containers, container theft/forgery, drop-off, fisher boats, divers, and even submarines or dissolved cocaine are new techniques increasingly being used (Figure 3). There are several reasons for these adaptations, but it is primarily due to the need to reduce the operational risks associated with having a significant number of concealers/collectors responsible for the contamination and/or extraction of cocaine in maritime containers. This issue becomes more relevant in the context of increasing cocaine shipment volumes and a greater surprise presence of government agencies in ports.

For this reason, the development of the UNODC-WCO Container Control Program and the implementation of ContainerComm as a communication platform between Joint Interinstitutional Port Control Units would have done nothing more than replace the practice of scam/scam, which forced criminal networks to contaminate and/or recover drug shipments through the fraudulent entry and/or removal of the maritime container from the port area, with the support of the Container Identification Code (BIC) and the support of apocryphal documentation. This new technique provides greater fluidity to the maritime transport chain, ensuring its consistency and stability, and involves fewer people per operation.
This interconnection of illicit cocaine trafficking chains with the formal and informal economy is also taking a more aggressive form. In various cities in South America, West Africa, North Africa, and Europe, various employees and officials working in port areas are recruited by trafficking networks to collaborate and/or provide information that enables trafficking operations in exchange for significant sums of money.

Consequently, the use of sophisticated logistical techniques and infrastructure does not depend solely on the existence of more or less control actions, arrests of ‘trafficking bosses’, and seizures of cocaine by state authorities. It is a logistical need in itself. This is even more the case when one considers that tackling actions are doubly limited. On the one hand, this structural limitation is due to the impossibility of controlling a significant number of containers without disrupting the proper flow of international trade and/or without damaging the health of high-value and high-risk products, such as those transported in frozen containers. On the other hand, the limitation is due to the regulatory restrictions imposed by international trade standards regarding the percentage of optimal/authorized controls so as not to harm commercial interests by increasing regular logistics costs. In any case, the possibility of using multiple modes of transportation in the current cocaine circulation makes it difficult to control.

In particular, our field observations in Santos, Malaga, Tangiers, Paris, Porto, London, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam show us that police operations against specific criminal groups – such as Albanian clans – do not have a significant impact on successive cocaine trafficking networks. Despite government operations, we continue to observe and document the stable and uninterrupted presence of cocaine traffickers 24 hours a day, for example, around the Flower Streets in Porto or the Red Line Zone in Amsterdam. We have documented over months that the supply and presentation of cocaine have been stabilized in Europe, despite a context of increasing seizures and state actions targeting drug traffickers.

Similarly, there has been an increase in the use of recreational sailboats and/or medium-sized open-water fishing vessels to transport cocaine by sea. These vessels navigate the various corridors to, for example, the archipelagos of the North Atlantic, where cocaine is transshipped and then redirected to Central and Southern Europe. One of the vessels using this corridor was the fishing boat Efesios 5-20, which was intercepted near the Canary Islands while carrying a hidden cargo of approximately 1,500 kilograms of cocaine. In this context, the strong material and symbolic links that will be explored in subsequent works stand out between the different trafficking networks that operate between Brazil, the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and the ports of Tangiers (Figure 4) and Leixões. The same is true between the networks that operate from Brazil, the island of Cape Verde, the coast of Guinea, and the port of Setúbal and Agadir.

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4** Port of Tangier-Ville.
Fieldwork Nicolas Lien. Tangier, Morocco. June 2023.</figcaption></figure>
The acquisition and circulation of money within illegal transnational markets is fiercely contested by various criminal groups involved in both wholesale and retail cocaine operations. This complex web of interactions intertwines criminal actors with corrupt state agents, legal professionals, financial intermediaries, and stock market operators, ultimately fueling formal and legitimate global markets through interconnected parallel channels. As a result, billions of dollars are generated, exchanged, or invested, either in cash or through the purchase of goods ranging from low to high value. A variety of financial mechanisms are used to channel, transfer, or secure the profits generated at each stage of the cocaine trafficking chain, reflecting the sophisticated economic integration of illicit activities into the global economy.

The evolution of cocaine trafficking networks has a secondary dimension: the necessity of utilizing their established logistical infrastructure to prevent its degradation. Local operators recognize that failure to do so could jeopardize the cooperative networks that sustain their operations. For this reason, the same logistics systems are occasionally repurposed for the trafficking of other illicit goods, such as firearms, synthetic drugs, and humans.

Despite cultural and linguistic barriers, as well as non-border asymmetries, cocaine has steadily traversed various regions in recent years, solidifying its presence in new consumer markets, such as those in North African countries, which now contribute to global trafficking flows. The effort to identify large populations of potential consumers has largely been undertaken by intermediary groups like the PCC in São Paulo or the ‘Ndrangheta. Alongside this, the parallel supply of cocaine byproducts has also expanded.

Fieldwork reveals this stratification in the European street drug market. For instance, in areas such as Görlitzer Park in Berlin, Istedgade Street in Copenhagen's Vesterbro district, or Barking Town in East London, local traffickers offer both Colombian and Peruvian cocaine (Figure 5). This has led to market segmentation and the growing availability of crack cocaine as an additional product, as noted in a recent report (EMCDDA, 2024). This trend is particularly concerning due to the severe harm crack inflicts on users, presenting challenges to the global retail cocaine market.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

Furthermore, efforts to reduce the use of harmful cutting agents in Europe have gained momentum. However, exceptions remain; in Porto, phenacetin, a highly carcinogenic substance, has reportedly been used as a cutting agent for cocaine. This practice underscores ongoing risks within certain local markets. This trend represents yet another visible impact on the final link of the associated trafficking chain, presenting a significant challenge for the market to maintain more refined forms of demand while ensuring a stable and substantial consumer base. This dynamic accounts for the presence of numerous cocaine base paste reoxidation and

<caption>**Figure 5** Housing usurped by
cuckoo practice and used by
local distributors for the sale
of drugs.</caption>

Fieldwork Nicolas Lien. London,
England. June 2023.
crystallization laboratories in various parts of Europe, such as Pontevedra, Spain. Trafficking networks have thus evolved, integrating facilities and infrastructure that not only enable the recovery of cocaine hydrochloride concealed in impregnated clothing or dissolved in liquids, as seen in previous methods, but also facilitate the production of high-quality hydrochloride.

Within this context, the increasingly frequent occurrences of lethal violence (Silva, 2004) against suspected collaborators of transnational trafficking networks in cities such as Malaga, Marbella, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen are unsurprising. These violent incidents reflect the inherent entropy of the entire cocaine trafficking chain. Although the general logic of the expansion of criminal organizations is non-violent and based on markets, global reconfiguration of entire value chains gives place to conflicts that sometimes provoke local outbreaks. High-profile episodes, such as the assassination of journalist Peter R. de Vries in central Amsterdam (Figure 6), are not random acts but rather manifestations of the organizational mechanics underpinning the trafficking network.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

Lien and Feltran
Journal of Illicit
Economies and
Development
DOI: 10.31389/jied.274

**Figure 6** Place where Peter R. de Vries was shot. Fieldwork Nicolas Lien. Lange Leidsedwarsstraat, Amsterdam. June 2023.

DISCUSSION

Cocaine, derived from the alkaloid found in coca bush leaves cultivated not only in Colombia but across the Andean region of South America, is increasingly prevalent in retail markets across major cities in South America, West and North Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. In urban centers such as São Paulo, Tangier, London, and Malmö, the supply of cocaine in various forms remains consistent. This phenomenon underscores the ongoing expansion and entrenchment of a truly global illicit cocaine market.

The globalization of international cocaine trafficking is fundamentally driven by the professionalization of its logistical operations, encompassing the globalization of investments, physical infrastructure, communications, and extensive collaboration among international actors in this criminal market. Without this professionalization, the discourse would still revolve around disparate groups operating independently in different regions, competing rather than forming a cohesive global market. This transformation in the scale and modus operandi of the trafficking chain entails two notable and interrelated effects. First, only a select few criminal organizations generate sufficient revenue to continuously professionalize technologies and refine procedures essential for regulating the market, thereby creating opportunities for decentralized, autonomous ventures. Second, millions of potential small-scale, self-employed distributors and retailers participate in the chain, embodying the principle that cocaine can be as readily available as beer in virtually any village worldwide. The circulation of money through global markets depends on this dynamic, and there will always be individuals willing to capitalize on such opportunities.
Our analytical hypothesis, informed by years of empirical research, posits that the expansion of (il)licit markets not only mirrors and draws inspiration from legal markets but also grows in tandem with them. From a certain level of abstraction, legal and illegal money converge into a single economic category: money (Feltran, 2020). The (il)licit drug trafficking chain is undergoing a process of expansion characterized by diversification and imbalances across its various sectors or links. Initially, the advanced logistical sectors of the chain attract human, material, financial, and social resources at a faster rate than the less advanced sectors. Over time, as resources are transferred and consolidated, the less advanced links are rendered obsolete, leaving only those sectors that achieve a level of sophistication sufficient to coexist with the more advanced components of the chain. This process reflects the inherent evolution and stratification within the global cocaine trafficking network documented by EUROPOL (2024).

The technical and logistical advancements observed within the (il)licit cocaine trafficking chain are neither uniformly distributed nor consistent across its various links or sectors. However, these advancements are often transferred, resulting in broader modifications to the chain's productive structure. These changes influence intermediation processes, as well as the dynamics of demand and supply, which remain subject to inherent limits and complex challenges, as documented in existing research.

A key premise underpinning our hypothesis about the trafficking chain is that less developed links or sectors can initiate a process of convergence with their more advanced counterparts. This convergence is motivated by an aspiration to emulate successful practices, leading to greater structural flexibility and the capacity to reorganize in response to evolving conditions. This 'catch-up' model hinges on the ability to orchestrate necessary changes, acquire and apply knowledge systems and techniques, and effectively manage conflicts.

Our hypothesis is substantiated by empirical evidence demonstrating that interpersonal and logistical relationships surrounding local production and trafficking are foundational. In all observed cases, the material basis of these social relations was strong enough to enable the coordination of operations within multiple segments of the trafficking chain. Cooperation among actors and the provision of logistical support proved central to the chain's development, underscoring the importance of collaborative networks in sustaining and expanding trafficking activities.

The logistical dimension of the trafficking chain has undergone a significant transformation, wherein each actor maximizes the resources available within their position to ensure the reciprocal delivery or provision of goods and services required by their partners. This evolution has been marked by a shift from personal, relationship-based interactions toward the establishment of robust logistical connections. These professionalized links have become the foundation for the essential contributions and commercial operations that sustain the supply of illicit drugs. Presently, the productive and supply chain prioritizes strategic alliances that facilitate its development, transcending the ideological and identity-based positions of the actors involved.

Ultimately, this evolution underscores the fact that even (il)licit markets depend on the trust that emerges from collaborative and cooperative alliances among operators. Such trust is often rooted in pre-existing social ties, including kinship, geographical proximity, and shared ethnic, religious, or social affiliations. Moreover, the ability of actors to adapt and form new partnerships based on experience and professionalization has become increasingly significant. Consequently, the morphology of transnational networks, including their hierarchies, group formations, and cooperative alliances, is shaped by the degree of trust among criminal actors and the strategies employed to manage violence within the network.

## CONCLUSION

Instead, a competitive and highly regulated economic environment among multiple criminal actors has emerged, fostering an ecosystem in which logistics are global. The ability to manage information and interpersonal networks across various locations is crucial for criminal organizations to maintain a steady flow of illicit trade. This emphasis offers two distinct avenues for future academic research. First, it prompts a reimagining of the evolving topographies of transnational criminal networks involved in drug trafficking. From an image based on violent and brutal Colombian and Mexican cartels, we could move to a more realistic image of highly
professionalized logistical networks in which violence plays a secondary and instrumental role at the local level when really necessary. Second, it provides another potential framework for understanding the structural and material characteristics of macro criminal networks. From the image of centralized organizations governed by capos with personalized power, we would move to an image of secret fraternities that allow intense autonomy to cutting-edge entrepreneurs, an enormous capacity to build external collaboration, and a high capacity for internal regulation. These insights would elucidate the operational logic and mechanisms underpinning contemporary globalization of criminal networks related to cocaine trafficking.

If our hypotheses are solid, these emerging global logistical dynamics lead to an understanding of the territories and corridors controlled by criminal groups as being remarkably dispersed and fluid. These spaces are co-governed through the establishment of personal relationships and logistical cooperation predicated on the strategic use of accurate and localized information. This framework suggests the emergence of a shared logistical sphere, a domain that operates from the margins and interfaces with the centralities of global economies, intricately linked to the trafficking of cocaine.

Further, it is true that the expansion of the global illicit cocaine chain has been accompanied in some places by an escalation in violent enforcement mechanisms deployed by criminal networks. These mechanisms often target employees or officials unwilling to cooperate with trafficking operations. Documented cases include kidnappings, targeted assassinations, and bombings within strategic port complexes, such as those in Santos, Brazil, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. These incidents underscore the pervasive reach of criminal networks and their ability to impose operational discipline through violence, creating ripple effects that disrupt formal economies. For instance, the current peak in violence linked to the cocaine trade in Ecuador has not only destabilized local communities but also impaired the competitiveness of exports and formal economic activity by increasing logistical costs and prolonging operational timelines.

In Europe, the prevalence of lethal violence tied to cocaine trafficking has similarly surged. Statistical data reveal alarming trends, including a 50% increase in homicides connected to drug trafficking and retail cocaine sales. Additionally, there are rising reports of young adults involved in extreme acts of violence, such as contract killings and armed confrontations using automatic or semi-automatic weapons, particularly in cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Marbella. These patterns highlight the entropic effects of cocaine trafficking on societal stability and underscore the violent underpinnings of this illicit chain, which permeate both everyday life and broader economic systems.

These cases of violence rightly attract public attention, but we argue that they end up creating a smokescreen over the processes that are most relevant to understanding the expansion of these markets. Our text has shown, through the example of the expansion of the Brazilian PCC, that violence appears as a last resort and that behind it there is an enormous economic, political and ideological effort, above all non-violent, creating criminal global connections to various other international mafias. Association and cooperation, rather than violent confrontation, characterize the latest generation of transnational criminal organizations. The problem of violence linked to illicit markets, in this new scenario, then changes the level of concern. In addition to the importance of criminal violence in itself, which is local in nature, the collaboration between different international mafias really puts the problem of the monopoly of legitimate violence by the state on the agenda in different parts of the world.

In summary, the intertwined dynamics of logistical innovation, globalization of criminal networks, and violence administration reflect the complex and evolving nature of global cocaine trafficking. These interrelations illuminate the broader impacts on both illicit and formal economies, as well as the sociopolitical landscapes they influence. This multifaceted phenomenon certainly deserves further study, as it has short- and long-term implications for drug policy and violence management, but most importantly for democracy and even state sovereignty.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank their fieldwork interlocutors, who have been anonymized for ethical reasons. We would also like to thank the many academic interlocutors with whom we have discussed our hypotheses: Anna Sergi, Lucia Bird, Henrik Vigh, and our academic institutions, as well as our funders.
COMPETING INTERESTS

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

AUTHOR AFFILIATIONS

Nicolas Lien [ID](cid:0)orcid.org/0000-0002-4077-4866
National University of Córdoba-UNC/Aconcagua University-UDA, AR

Gabriel Feltran [ID](cid:0)orcid.org/0000-0003-3424-0822
CEE Sciences Po, FR

Lien and Feltran
*Journal of Illicit*
*Economies and*
*Development*
DOI: 10.31389/jied.274

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**TO CITE THIS ARTICLE:**
Lien, N. and Feltran, G. 2025. (1)Illicit Chains: Some New Hypotheses Regarding a Changing Global Cocaine Market. *Journal of Illicit Economies and Development*, 7(1): pp. 20–34. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31389/jied.274

Submitted: 03 June 2024

Accepted: 20 February 2025

Published: 11 March 2025

**COPYRIGHT:**
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

*Journal of Illicit Economies and Development* is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by LSE Press.