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German & Belgian custom agents discover 23 metric TONS of cocaine worth at least $2.5B

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By AUS-97HORN
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AUS-97HORN

AUS-97HORN 11,765

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in 2 seizures earlier this month.  they were related, either from the same boat or the same distribution company over 2 boats, article isnt that clear on that point. 

just to get an idea of how large this is... for  all of Europe for the entire year last year about 102 tonnes (metric), was seized.  this shit is  20% of the entire previous years haul. 

 

war on drugs and all I get it, not a fan of the drug war....

but holy fuck 1 whole fucking shipment with that much in it, means that someone was willing to lose a load that size, which you only do if you have more loads of similar sizes elsewhere. 

 

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Customs authorities in Germany and Belgium have seized a record amount of cocaine - more than 23 tonnes - that was destined for the Netherlands.

German officials discovered 16 tonnes in five shipping containers that had arrived in the port of Hamburg from Paraguay earlier this month.

Police in the Netherlands were notified and a further 7.2 tonnes of cocaine was seized at the Belgian port of Antwerp.

German officials said the cocaine had a street value of billions of euros.

A 28-year-old man suspected of involvement in the trafficking of the drugs has been arrested in the Netherlands, Dutch police said on Wednesday.

 

The two raids, which took place earlier this month, resulted in the seizure of an "enormous amount of cocaine", customs officials said.

 

In Antwerp, the drug was hidden in a container filled with wooden blocks from Panama.

The cocaine found in the northern German city of Hamburg was concealed in tins of wall filler, which had entered Europe on a container ship from Paraguay.

Cocaine found in over 1,700 tins of wall filler in Hamburg, GermanyIMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS
image captionOfficials ordered the containers to be emptied after noticing "clear irregularities"
Cocaine found in over 1,700 tins of wall filler in Hamburg, GermanyIMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTE
 
Customs officers decided to take a closer look at the Paraguayan containers after noticing "clear irregularities" with some of the contents - tin cans that were meant to be filled with putty.

"Beyond a layer of genuine goods, packed just behind the container door, numerous tin cans were in fact filled with other goInvestigators then ordered the containers to be unloaded, and found cocaine stashed away in more than 1,700 tins.

"This is the largest amount of cocaine ever seized in Europe and one of the largest single seizures worldwide," German customs said, referring to the Hamburg haul alone.

 

"We are estimating a street sales value of between €1.5bn and €3.5bn ($1.8bn and $4.2bn) for the 16 tonnes," Hamburg customs official Rene Matschke told AFP news agency.

Hamburg is Europe's third biggest port, and the largest in Germany.

Paraguay has been a key transit country for drugs for years.

Powerful drug trafficking gangs from neighbouring Brazil, such as First Capital Command (PCC), have expanded across the border into Paraguay and are running many of the smuggling operations there.

The drugs are often shipped in containers from Paraguay to port cities in Europe.

This latest haul, however, is the biggest ever discovered in Europe.

 

In October, 11.5 tonnes of cocaine was discovered hidden in scrap metal containers that had arrived in Antwerp from South America.

In August 2019, customs officials at the port of Hamburg seized about 4.5 tonnes of cocaine from a shipment that was listed as soya beans. Officials said at the time that the haul could have been worth up to €1bn, depending on its purity.

High-purity cocaine can be cut up or divided, with different substances added to increase profits when sold on the street.

Last year, about 102 tonnes of cocaine was intercepted while heading for Europe.

 

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deadshank

deadshank 24,653

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I served on a federal grand jury.  One of the cases we reviewed was the DEA seizure of what they thought was a lliteral “boatload of cocaine.”

When the DEA and Coast Guard boarded the smallish freighter the crew had already thrown the packaged coke over the sides and into the Golfo de Mexico.  They were quite proud of themselves and smirked at the federal agents. “No coca-eena, putos!  Vaminos!”
 

The DEA brought shop vacs with them and captured enough residual cocaine dust to amount to over 10 kilos and the crew got new silver bracelets along with a stay at the Graybar Motel. 
 

/csb

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52-80

52-80 19,161

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8 hours ago, AUS-97HORN said:

but holy fuck 1 whole fucking shipment with that much in it, means that someone was willing to lose a load that size, which you only do if you have more loads of similar sizes elsewhere.

The only other loads of comparable size have been found a few times, at South Austin's mom's house

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8,349

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Money was just a proxy for human desire and vice.  Vice won.  It always has.

Try banning sex and see how that works out for you.

"You can make [prostitution] illegal, but you can't make it unpopular." -- New Orleans mayor Martin Behrman, unsuccessfully fighting the feds to keep Storyville open in 1917. 

Which as we all know was the year all vice ceased in New Orleans forever and ever. 

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Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday 199

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4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Money was just a proxy for human desire and vice.  Vice won.  It always has.

Try banning sex and see how that works out for you.

I was in a liquor store at the beginning of covid when the news over their TV came across that our governor was shutting down liquor stores, bars, weed shops, and everything.   I blurted out that he's a fool, you can't take away people's vices, lock them into their homes, and not expect some sort of vice withdrawal backlash.   A couple days later, weed shops and liquor stores were considered essential.  I laughed.

 

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Doc Reeves

Doc Reeves 6,434

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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Money was just a proxy for human desire and vice.  Vice won.  It always has.

Try banning sex and see how that works out for you.

True, but physical drugs are only for some while money is a drug for everyone. 

theres a +17,000% profit margin for cocaine. If you manufacture a pen for a dollar and can sell it for $17000 then there’s practically nothing you can do to stop it. They have the ability to make their own entire financial system and industrialize corruption with people who never have and never will do drugs

Edited by Doc Reeves
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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105,151

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1 minute ago, Doc Reeves said:

True, but physical drugs are only for some while money is a drug for everyone. 

theres a +17,000% profit margin for cocaine. If you manufacture a pen for a dollar and can sell it for $17000 then practically nothing you can do to stop it. They have the ability to make you’re own entire financial system and industrialize corruption with people who’ve never have and never will do drugs

The price is just a function of the demand (vice) and the artificial difficulty in getting the product (making it illegal).  Drop the artificial constraint, and the demand will still be exactly the same.  Because people like to party and get high.  And drink.  And screw.

The reason that drugs have a huge trafficking infrastructure is the money, no doubt -- money which is created by an artificial constraint on supply.  That's it.  Make it just another crop, and the money issue goes way down.

Criminalizing vice doesn't work.  Ever.

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Doc Reeves

Doc Reeves 6,434

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Criminalizing vice doesn't work.  Ever.

 this is very true, but the issues of drugs are not necessarily directly authoritarian. This harkens back to the Opium Wars where such immense fortunes were made drug cartels fielded actual armies. 

If enough money is made (translating to power) it then becomes a matter of political legitimacy which means the ruling power will go to heavy and desperate methods to disparage it.

The Mexican cartels have improved on the method the Colombians used (and before them the Mafia) of cutting the government officials in. The drug war was never a real “war” it was a farce that made everyone a lot more money.

the only thing people like more than partying and screwing is money.  
 

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105,151

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:

 this is very true, but the issues of drugs are not necessarily directly authoritarian. This harkens back to the Opium Wars where such immense fortunes were made drug cartels fielded actual armies. 

If enough money is made (translating to power) it then becomes a matter of political legitimacy which means the ruling power will go to heavy and desperate methods to disparage it.

The Mexican cartels have improved on the method the Colombians used (and before them the Mafia) of cutting the government officials in. The drug war was never a real “war” it was a farce that made everyone a lot more money.

the only thing people like more than partying and screwing is money.  
 

Because money buys you more partying and screwing.  Don't forget that.  It's always the end-game:

b341a5b422a637b009b1f28e7ebf39ee.jpg

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Cajun

Cajun 11,705

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

This just in: German and Belgian police enters 18 metric tons of cocaine worth at least $1.9B into evidence

 No, no, no.  They entered 20 metric tons into evidence and there were 22 seized.

That's the math bro.

Press release is post scrape, not pre.

Edited by Cajun
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