http://www.antimafiaduemila.com/hom...-i-porti-per-il-traffico-di-cocaina.html

The 'Ndrangheta and the ports for cocaine traffic

by Aaron Pettinari
Presented the report "Italian port security"

"The drug market is a market that knows no crisis and the 'Ndrangheta controls 80% of the cocaine traffic that arrives in Europe", declared Nicola Gratteri in an interview with our newspaper . it has never been questioned and it is also confirmed by more recent surveys.In recent days, the report was confirmed by the "Italian port security" report . "Among all the various mafia organizations in Italy, in fact - reads in the document -the Calabrian has managed to acquire almost total control of this traffic, pushing other criminal organizations, Italian or foreign, to specialize in the traffic of other drugs or other illicit trafficking. The peculiarity of the 'Ndrangheta is that the detention of this monopoly allows it to care less than other trades, such as that of foreign manufactured tobacco, preferring to leave this type of activity in Camorra and Puglia mafias, almost to divide up the proceeds for a peaceful modus vivendi. The acquisition of this substantial monopoly was possible thanks to the creation of solid relations with the South American cartels that made the 'Ndrangheta one of the most important mafia organizations in the world, with ramifications also in central and northern Italy and in the rest of Europe (as well as in the rest of the world). Therefore, it is the other Italian mafia organizations that have to turn to the Calabrian clans for the purchase of consignments of cocaine ".
In the study developed by Clarissa Spada and Francesco Marone and edited by Lorenzo Vidino , the themes of illicit trafficking and jihadist infiltration in Italian ports are analyzed . In particular, with regard to the former, we focus on the "smuggling of foreign manufactured tobacco, illegal immigration, arms trafficking and, above all, that of drugs, in relation to which we find a different treatment of cocaine, heroin, hashish and marijuana, as opportune as expected, the differences concerning the places of origin, the routes and the modes of transport, as well as the criminal groups that deal with the relative marketing continues to be the main gateway to white powder in Italy ".
In particular, it highlights how the 'Ndrangheta, in recent times, is "diversifying" the destination of the loads of the drug. The Port of Gioia Tauro remains the most important in the world chess game because it "is also the largest gateway to cocaine, so much so that it is sometimes called" Coca Tauro. "A port that has now become fundamental for the 'Ndrangheta, where the the most important families of the Gioia Tauro plain - Piromalli, Pesce, Molè, Bellocco - dominate and succeed in penetrating the management of the port on several levels ". However, due to the repressive action, the Calabrian organized crime would gradually diversify the points of arrival. "so they decided to turn to the ports of Northern Italy, such as those of Genoa, La Spezia, Vado Ligure (SV), Livorno, Venice. The dangerous bonds that the clans have managed to create and cement have made these areas a crossroads of sorting " , moreover, closer " to the remuneration dealing channels with those of Lombardy, Piedmont and even Northern Europe "." In confirmation of what was said - adds the study - 2018 began with very few cocaine seizures at the port of Gioia Tauro (about 74 kg from January to May 2018). On the contrary, more substantial quantities have been found in ports such as Genoa and Livorno " .

The routes of the White Gold
The loads of Cocaine arrive from South America (above all from Colombia) and from Mexico often taking advantage of transhipment operations with feeder services , also passing through West Africa or the ports of southern Spain. Four are the main broken indicated by the scholars.
The California express: from North America to Panama through California and Mexico. From Panama then, through the feeder services , we collect the minor loads from Chile, Peru and Brazil, directed to Gioia Tauro.
Medusa: from Mexico to the Bahamas. Here smaller loads are collected from the rest of South America through the ports of Spain, especially Valencia. The decision to enter the Schengen area by first touching the Spanish ports is certainly not random, but is intended to evade controls, and make the cargo less suspicious. One of the elements constituting the risk analysis of customs is precisely the origin of the cargo, together with the ship's flag. The fact that a ship has in theory already passed the controls of another European state, causes the illicit load to attract less attention.
Argentina: towards Montevideo, in Uruguay, and South Brazil, before leaving for Gioia Tauro.
From West Africa: in order to avoid predictable routes, many consignments of cocaine are diverted to Ghana and Nigeria and then sent to Europe.

Traffic methods
According to the report, the most used means of transporting coca is certainly that of containers. The drug is "concealed behind cover loads, sophisticated double-dumps developed to circumvent X-ray controls or even in empty containers." For several years the rip-off system has been adopted, which consists of positioning the game of drugs in bags in front of the container ship, in such a way as to be easily removed from port operators 'infidels', who receive specific instructions to carry out such an action ".In this case the load is not inserted in the very first phase of filling the container, "but at a later time, with the opening of the container itself through tampering and, sometimes, replacing its seal". Another one concerns transshipment operations off the coasts on smaller boats, often fishing boats. It also happens that the drugs are thrown into the sea from the mother ship, equipped with GPS, so as to intercept them. Finally, the use of specially modified motor ships in the bottom to then proceed with the extraction of the load with the help of divers.