Drug Market and Criminality at the Time of COVID-19
parties . On the supply side , the closure of the Cayenne-Guyane airline line will undoubtedly tighten the French market .
There is still container traffic from Latin America and the Caribbean , which is less affected at the moment by the impact of border closures . Thus , cocaine stocks are overflowing in Colombia , while the border closure measures taken by this country on March 17 , in a context where chaos reigns on its border with Venezuela , will probably only be relatively effective , given the congenital weakness of the Colombian state . 20 However , it is possible to think that the coming global economic crisis and the subsequent fall in world trade will greatly slow down the traffic of goods in containers .
The fall in domestic demand in the European Union countries will lead to a decrease in imports and therefore a slowdown in the international flow of goods . Fewer containers will mean less cocaine , in a context where law enforcement agencies have decided to increase port surveillance . For example , Antwerp Customs announced last October that it would set up systematic surveillance and controls of vessels from countries at risk ( Colombia , Brazil , etc .). 21 The recent seizures in Belgium of air and sea vectors in March 2020 suggest that traffickers anticipated this drop in traffic and wanted to , in a way , force the issue . 22
This is the conclusion of the Belgian federal police . To these factors , one must of course add the re-establishment of border controls in the Netherlands and Belgium , even if these can be porous , which will hinder the supply of the French market .
The Balkan Route of Cut Heroin
Given the low level of consumption , the heroin market is less strategic for organized crime . However , it would be a mistake to neglect it because this market is far from negligible in the European Union . At 7.5 billion euros , it is in fact the third largest market in terms of turnover behind cannabis and cocaine 23 and segments of organized crime : Albanian mafia and Turkish criminal groups continue to be interested in it , as shown by the recent dismantling of heroin production laboratories in the Netherlands , Bulgaria , and Czechia . 24
In addition , the last two years have seen record opium production in Af-
20 Michel Gandilhon , op . cit ., 2020 .
22 AFP , April 1 st , 2020 23 EMCDDA , op . cit ., 2019 .
19