Malta has just earned its place among the top 12 EU countries for the largest amounts of cocaine seizures. This sheds light on the island’s position as a drug trafficking gateway in Europe.
Malta has one of the main ports of the Mediterranean which anyone can use to enter Europe.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and Europol published their fourth comprehensive overview of illicit drug markets in the European Union, but the exact amount of drugs seized by Maltese authorities was not revealed.
Despite this, according to news reports throughout the years, large numbers of drug busts at Malta’s Freeport have amounted to millions. December 2020, in fact, saw a record breaking bust of 612kg of cocaine imported from Colombia and Ecuador.
Despite not being destined for the island, the shipment was valued at around €70 million. The record was then broken again last month, after 800kg of cocaine were seized, at €108.2 million.
Authorities have managed to bust many such trafficking attempts, but sources have constantly warned that this is just a fraction of what actually goes through.
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