EU Drug Market: Cannabis — Criminal networks
This resource is part of EU Drug Market: Cannabis — In-depth analysis by the EMCDDA and Europol.
An attractive market for serious and organised crime
Criminal networks involved in the illicit cannabis market are highly adaptable and diverse. Individuals and networks fill various roles in this trade, from producers and traffickers to groups investing in the business as well as outsourced service providers hired to undertake specific tasks.
Some networks are composed of EU nationals operating in their own countries or in other EU Member States. This includes, for example, the Dutch and Belgian networks running drug trafficking operations in the Netherlands and Belgium, or some of the Italian networks operating in Spain.
Other networks are composed of both EU and non-EU nationals, or only of third-country nationals. An example of this is Belgium, where a variety of suspects including Belgian, Dutch or Albanian, are involved in cannabis cultivation, as they are in other key drug trafficking hubs. Overall, Belgian, Dutch and Albanian networks appear to be the key players in cannabis cultivation in Belgium. Dutch criminal networks are often involved in managing or operating the more sophisticated cultivation sites, although Albanian criminals also operate industrial and large-scale cannabis plantations across Belgium (Belgian Federal Police, 2022).
Criminal networks from key source countries for cannabis outside the EU play an important role in the EU’s illicit cannabis market, either in cooperation with local networks or as more independent operators managing the whole supply chain from production to distribution. This is the case, for example, with Moroccan networks active in Spain and the Netherlands, where they orchestrate the importation of cannabis resin from Morocco, but also engage in cannabis cultivation locally.
Albanian criminals in particular have lately strengthened their foothold in the cannabis market across the EU, including in Spain, dealing both with local cannabis cultivation and importing herbal cannabis and cannabis resin from non-EU countries (see Box Involvement of Western Balkan networks in the EU).
Criminal networks involved in the illicit cannabis market are highly cooperative, particularly at the wholesale level; they share resources, build partnerships and provide services. For example, brokers originating from or with links to external source countries put suppliers in connection with criminal networks for the distribution of cannabis in the EU.
This is indicative of how criminals often make use of one another’s contacts and infrastructure; enabling participation in larger cannabis shipments and the negotiation of more favourable prices. Criminal networks may also cooperate to organise the transportation of shipments, to strengthen their position in the market or by forming alliances in ongoing violent conflicts.
Some networks engaged in cannabis trafficking are also involved in other drug markets. This may entail trafficking multiple types of drugs (such as cannabis together with heroin or cocaine). Some of those cultivating cannabis in the EU have also been active in synthetic drugs production. At the wholesale level, it is not uncommon for criminal networks to barter one drug for another, trading cannabis for heroin or cocaine, for example.
Some cannabis traffickers also engage in criminal activities that are not linked to drugs, such as property crimes (particularly networks operating at the distribution level). This includes networks operating in coastal areas of southern Spain, which often both import cannabis resin from Morocco and facilitate irregular migration from African countries, using the same vessels.
The criminal processes behind the illicit cannabis market
For members of the criminal networks controlling illicit cannabis supply chains, the tasks involved are often clearly defined. At the cultivation and production level, such tasks include logistical arrangements (finding, renting and setting up the appropriate space for cultivation), the supply of equipment, seedlings and other raw materials, guarding the sites, cultivating, cutting and drying plants, and packaging and dispatching the consignments for onward sale. In some cases, certain stages are outsourced to dedicated service providers or to other criminal networks. Similarly, criminal organisations with longstanding expertise in cannabis cultivation, such as those operating in the Netherlands or Belgium, may lend their support to other networks.
Expertise, information, growing equipment, seeds and other raw materials are often legally available in local garden shops or hardware stores such as those in the Netherlands, but also online. There are indications that some grow-shop owners not only provide advice on cultivation, but may also act as brokers, connecting criminals with the specialists needed in illicit cannabis cultivation (National Police of the Netherlands, 2022).
In the distribution phase, the fragmentation of tasks and the diversity of those involved is even clearer. Some parties negotiate drugs purchases from suppliers in source countries, while others concentrate on the transportation of the drugs, sourcing vehicles and boats and recruiting facilitators. Still others arrange for the reception, storage and protection of the drugs, including taking countermeasures against law enforcement intervention. Europol information indicates that one set of criminals within a network moves the drugs by sea to the chosen transhipment point, where land transportation is taken over by another part of the network. The sharing or lending of expertise has also been identified in the distribution segment, with experienced individuals employed as couriers or organisers responsible for certain segments of the trafficking chain.
Some criminal networks, particularly those with long-standing experience like the Dutch, Moroccan or Albanian networks, may manage the entire drug trafficking process, from cultivation or extraction to transportation and distribution.
Crime-as-a-service
Criminal networks involved in the illicit cannabis trade use the services of a multitude of specialists who are either embedded in the network or sourced externally, acting as service providers. These actors provide a variety of criminal services at all stages of the illicit cannabis supply chain, from production to distribution.
Brokers may for instance be employed to establish illicit plantations, hiring chemists, agricultural engineers and specialists in growing plants under artificial conditions (National Police of the Netherlands, 2022). Electricians are also required to conceal the electricity consumption of cultivation sites. Harvesters are recruited to work on these plantations, and in some cases links to labour exploitation have been investigated by law enforcement.
In the distribution phase, traffickers use couriers, professional truck drivers and skilled operators of high-speed or semi-rigid boats. As a result of increasing trafficking activities, in October 2018 the Spanish authorities implemented regulations that limited the use of speedboats to maritime assistance and public services. As a result, some criminal networks have established shipyards for the construction of speedboats in neighbouring Portugal. When finished, the boats are supplied to traffickers in Spain (Guardia Civil, 2022b) (see Box Dedicated network providing cannabis traffickers in Spain with boats).
Mechanics are also often employed to modify vehicles used for trafficking and to build special compartments for concealing the drugs. In some cases, dedicated criminal networks or other outsourced service providers prepare the vehicles for cannabis trafficking.
Meanwhile, IT specialists ensure that online stores selling illicit cannabis products operate efficiently. Financial or legal advisers are also used to supply certain services and expertise, for example in relation to the transfer of funds. Money laundering is a particular segment of criminal operations that is often outsourced to specialised networks (Europol, 2023b; Lalam, 2023).
Others have exploited the opportunities provided by the high demand for concealing illicit activities through the manipulation of legal business structures. These criminals maintain networks of companies that can be used by traffickers to conceal drug trafficking operations or to move drugs across borders.
Overall, a wide range of facilitators undertake a variety of roles to assist criminal networks in overcoming obstacles. Such facilitators can, for instance, rapidly deploy and replace drivers or vehicles apprehended by law enforcement, or establish new companies for concealing their illicit activities, thus minimising the risk of failed consignments. The international dimension of these networks, including the cells they operate in different countries and key locations along trafficking routes, further enhance their adaptability.
Enablers of cannabis trafficking
Legal business structures
As in the case of other drugs, legal business structures play a pivotal role in the cannabis trade. Criminal networks use companies to purchase, rent, register or modify vehicles, to recruit and hire drivers, or to purchase equipment and raw materials for cannabis cultivation. In other cases, companies are utilised to gain access to and rent premises as well as to conceal cultivation sites (see Box Spain seizes more than 32 tonnes of cannabis from a criminal network using several companies to run its operations). Transportation businesses (dealing in both freight and passengers) or trading companies allow criminals to conceal cannabis consignments and the logistical operations needed to move drugs.
While criminal networks may infiltrate existing companies by means of corruption or intimidation, in many cases the companies in question appear to have been established by the criminals themselves. In this way, the companies involved can easily be dismantled and new ones established if needed, for instance in order to hamper law enforcement investigations. Companies in the fishing sector or firms dealing with the production and trading of nautical equipment are employed by cannabis traffickers to procure boats for maritime smuggling.
Companies, mostly in cash-intensive industries such as construction and catering, can also provide cover for the movement of illicit profits. Money is also laundered through real estate or via business structures dealing with the importation of high-end vehicles. In some cases, such businesses may also be used to procure and modify vehicles for use in drug trafficking operations.
Corruption
To facilitate their operations, criminal networks involved in the illicit cannabis trade use the services of corrupt officials and staff working in various relevant areas. To ensure that cannabis consignments reach their destinations, criminal networks target customs officers, port officials, port workers including security staff, dock workers, those who have access to or manage ports’ IT infrastructure, airport staff or employees of private airport companies, drivers and other key individuals from transportation companies. To gain insight on investigations against them or to influence the course of law enforcement activities, police, prosecutors or prison staff are also targeted as potentially corruptible. Local administration officials, home, farm or company owners, as well as real estate agents may be bribed in order to identify, gain access to or control sites for cultivating or storing cannabis.
Violence
Despite the cooperation that occurs between networks, much of the violence among criminals reported to Europol in past years has been connected to illicit cannabis markets (Europol, 2021d). The combination of a diversity of criminals, the wide geographic span of the market and its profitability make the illicit cannabis trade highly volatile and dynamic, generating competition and, in many cases, leading to violent clashes the effects of which are felt in the wider society.
Violence is often triggered by the need to control markets or territories, by debt recovery and revenge, as well as by attempts to defraud business partners or to remove competitors. In some cases, violence is perpetrated to retrieve stolen harvests or in retaliation for thefts committed by other criminal groups. For example, street gangs involved in cannabis trafficking in France often engage in violent and even deadly clashes, with young victims caught in the crossfire (Demagny, 2023; RFI, 2021). In Sweden, competition between rival gangs involved in street distribution of cannabis has led to a number of violent confrontations. The use of violence is also significant in the illicit cannabis market in the Netherlands, especially in the context of thefts of cannabis products (National Police of the Netherlands, 2022).
Violence between criminal gangs fighting for control over the cannabis trade has increased in Spain as well (Alcázar, 2021). This includes homicides believed to be connected with cannabis thefts, transactions gone wrong or score settling between criminal groups (Pérez Ávila, 2019). In some cases, these groups’ business models imply the use of violence to achieve their objectives (see Box Italian mafia in Spain: torture, murders and drugs trafficking).
References
Consult the list of references used in this module.