Submarines, Trawlers and Small Ports: Portugal Is Cocaine’s Atlantic Gateway

Cocaine no longer slips into Europe through the same old gates. Bigger scanners in Rotterdam and tighter checks in Antuérpia have not stopped the flow; they have merely pushed it sideways, sending drug-laden fishing trawlers toward the Azores, semi-submersibles toward Madeira, and smaller freighters toward under-resourced ports on both sides of the Atlantic.

A shifting Atlantic chessboard

New data gathered by Europol and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime points to an increasingly fragmented map of sea routes. Vessels once steering straight for Belgium or the Netherlands are now making complicated detours: first to the Gulf of Guinea, then to Morocco’s Tânger-Med or the Canary Islands, and finally to Iberian waters where the cargo is split into much smaller lots. Authorities say these detours are a reaction to the 44-tonne drop in seizures at Antuérpia last year, a sign that traffickers fear strengthened controls but refuse to abandon the European market, now valued at close to €10 billion annually.

Portugal moves from sidelines to centre stage

Lisbon’s position on the world map has always invited trade—and, inevitably, contraband. Over the past two years, however, the country has become an entry point of choice for South American cartels. Customs officers recorded nearly 23 tonnes of cocaine seized in 2024, the highest figure here in almost two decades. The MAOC-N-led Operation Galgo in October netted 2.3 tonnes on a high-speed launch west of the Algarve. Earlier, the sprawling Narco Vela investigation traced eight tonnes shipped by sailboat and fishing craft from Brazil, leading to thirty arrests and revealing that Portuguese islands serve as mid-ocean petrol stations for so-called “narcolanchas”.

Submarines, trawlers and refrigerated containers

The ingenuity on display would not look out of place in a spy novel. Colombian-built narco-submarines now cross the Atlantic on their own power or rendezvous mid-ocean with support ships. Brazilian fishing boats, stripped of gear and fitted with secret hull compartments, cruise past naval patrols under the guise of routine tuna runs. Even legitimate freight continues to hide contraband: Spanish investigators in Valencia last April found more than 1 000 kg of cocaine wedged between sacks of coffee, while Portuguese customs recently cracked a shipment of industrial scrap metal concealing 210 kg. Officials add that smaller consignments— sometimes no more than 50 kg— are appearing more often, a tactic designed to soften the blow of any single bust.

Technology and teamwork tighten the net

Europe’s three busiest cargo hubs—Rotterdam, Antuérpia and Hamburg—responded by pouring money into advanced scanners, drone patrols and revamped access protocols. Rotterdam alone boosted container digitalisation by 40 %, while Belgium created a port security corps to chase so-called “drugsuithalers” sneaking into yards after dark. In Hamburg, a purpose-built security centre opened last summer, uniting police, customs and harbour authorities under one roof. On the intelligence side, the newly formed European Ports Alliance now pushes real-time alerts to Lisbon, Leixões and Sines so Portuguese teams know which incoming boxes deserve a closer look.

Public-health ripples far from the docks

Cocaine’s street price in Portugal has barely budged even as purity rises, a combination that health officials describe as the worst-case scenario. Hospital admissions linked to stimulants climbed in both Porto and Faro, and police register growing turf disputes among mid-level distributors. The EU Drug Agency warns that, unless interdiction keeps pace, the continent may face record-high consumption within three years. Meanwhile, mayors in coastal towns lobby for extra maritime-surveillance funds, arguing that local budgets cannot absorb the cost of round-the-clock patrols.

What investigators expect next

Senior officers interviewed by this newspaper foresee two immediate challenges: first, an upsurge in chemically disguised cocaine, dissolved into liquids or embedded in plastics that standard scanners miss; second, deeper infiltration of port workforces by criminal recruiters who pay handsomely for a single access code or forklift route. Portuguese agencies say their best defence remains rapid information-sharing—not only with big North Sea terminals but also with smaller African and South American ports where entire consignments can disappear from the manifest before a container even reaches Europe.

The narco map is redrawn with every seizure, yet the underlying equation has not changed. As long as European demand stays high and profits dwarf interception rates, traffickers will keep looking for the next blind spot—be that a remote cove in the Azores or a refrigerated box rolling down the quays of Setúbal under the cover of night.