Drug Smuggling Methods
The methods used by drug smugglers vary depending on the type of drug being transported and the region in question.
The methods used by drug smugglers vary depending on the type of drug being transported and the region in question. In some cases, large container ships are used to transport drugs, with the drugs hidden among legitimate cargo. In other cases, small boats and semi-submersible vessels are used to transport drugs directly to their destination.
A common method used by drug smugglers is to conceal illegal narcotics within fruit cargoes. Narcotics are often smuggled in fruit cargoes from Latin America, and the amounts can be in tonnes rather than just a few hundred kilos. This type of smuggling often comes from countries like Colombia, Peru, and other big fruit exporters. These cargoes are transported all over the world to Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and Asia.
Another method used by drug smugglers is container hijacking. Traffickers use commercial maritime vessels to smuggle sizeable quantities of drugs. It is estimated that less than 5% of all containers are checked on arrival into a port, so smugglers will often break into a container while it is sitting in a port or terminal and hide the drugs inside before the container is loaded onto a vessel. Drugs are often hidden in plain sight among the legitimate cargo. Smugglers have also hidden drugs within false walls or compartments within containers.
False bottoms may also be used in storage containers or barrels. Reports suggest that smugglers have made rapid advances in cloning the single-use, heavy-duty seals that secure containers before they embark on each leg. Traffickers are known to fake these seals when using the “rip-on/rip-off” method. Cloning a seal requires access to shipping documents and gaining access to the containers themselves, which almost always requires the assistance of a corrupt port employee. At the port of Caucedo in the Dominican Republic smugglers have started using trucks to move cocaine within the port. In 2022, port employees and truckers were arrested in an incident where they were in the process of moving cocaine from a container onto a truck.
Parasite smuggling is another method employed by drug smugglers. This involves using below-surface compartments of cargo vessels called sea chests, which can hold hundreds of kilograms of drugs. Smugglers have also strapped drugs to hulls or sub-surface parts of ships. In 2021, more than 200 kilograms of cocaine were seized, and a dozen people arrested during a police operation in Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo, home to the port of Vitória, when a vessel was found to be carrying drugs concealed within a container welded to the sub-surface of the vessel. Another popular smuggling method involves attaching magnets to small kilogram bricks of cocaine and then hiding the bricks throughout various areas of the vessel that are not typically searched during security checks. This method will typically involve a port worker or contracted security person with the ports. This method has been widely used on vessels that have transited via or departed from ports in Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
Finally, bribing or compromising a crew is another method used by drug smugglers. It can be challenging to determine the degree to which a crew is complicit in smuggling operations. For example, authorities in Australia arrested four crew members from the Cyprus-registered bulk carrier Kypros Bravery after seizing 416 kilograms of cocaine that the accused allegedly offloaded at sea.
In 2019, the MSC Gayane investigation showed that more than a third of the crew—all MSC employees—had helped transfer vast amounts of cocaine from speedboats at night off South America.
In one case, 20 tonnes of cocaine worth $1 billion were found packed amongst containers of wine and nuts. Intelligence sources indicate that this type of coercion with the larger shipping lines might not be solely container to MSC, but might also involve crews on vessels from other major global shipping companies.
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