Crooks and the ocean/land boundary have a very long history.
Smugglers have been saying "The coast is clear" in various languages since the first sea-going states arose.
From the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, April 7:
Of the 90 million containers that find their way through EU ports every year, law enforcement is able to physically inspect only two percent. This, combined with the criminal’s tricks, makes it almost impossible to detect the enormous amount of illicit goods that enter the continent through ports, according to a new Europol report.
The police agency released on Wednesday its analysis of the challenges law enforcement face in protecting the EU’s ports from criminal networks, who seek to exploit the continent’s shipping hubs to traffic hundreds of tonnes of narcotics across the world.
The report, released jointly with the Security Steering Committee of the ports of Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, and Rotterdam, examines the ingenuity employed by transnational crime groups to bypass authorities and smuggle their product across Europe’s transport system.
The freedom of movement granted within the Schengen Area has become part of the European way of life; highways, railways and ports connect cities across 27 countries, for goods as much as for people.
Once infiltrated by crime groups, however, these same interconnected shipping networks become a boone for illicit transnational enterprises such as drug smuggling. And the ports are the infiltration point.
The sheer volumes of shipments they process, and connectivity with the surrounding areas make them an attractive avenue for transporting illicit merchandise across the European market.
Add in the fact that criminal organizations can identify who at the ports can facilitate their goods getting processed as fluidly as possible, and one can see how authorities don’t really even have a chance.
Select corrupt officials, who have access to the proper logistics and shipping manifolds, can label which containers are to be inspected and which are to be waved through.
Essentially, routes exiting the ports are pre-selected for which have a greater chance to be searched, or none at all, given the lack of proper manpower. These are referred to by criminals as ‘green lines’, Europol said.
“Criminal networks work closely to evade security at land borders and at air and maritime ports. They have one thing in mind – profit,” said Europol’s Executive Director Catherine De Bolle.
As for the trafficking of the drugs itself, there are several modi operandi used to ingeniously conceal them, and no lack of creativity when one authorities get wise to one particular method.
One example is what is known as container cloning....
Also at the OCCRP April 7:
A Fake Bank Was Shut Down in Spain. Now a New One Has Popped Up in the U.K.
