Record cocaine seized in Europe as challenges grow: EU report

Bales with cocaine seized by Portuguese Police are displayed next to a Brazilian trawler at a Portuguese Navy base in Almada, outside Lisbon, Tuesday, June 4, 2019. Portuguese police say they have intercepted the trawler in the Atlantic Ocean and found on board cocaine with a street value of more than 30 million euros, $34 million. (AP Photo/Helena Alves)

European authorities are seizing record quantities of increasingly pure cocaine, the EU’s drugs agency said in a report published Thursday, pointing also to a growing use of synthetic drugs and dealing via smartphones.

The rise in trafficking on social media, darknet markets and cocaine “call centres”, where dealers deliver quickly to users who order online, are creating a “potential ‘Uberisation'” of the drugs trade, the study said.

“The challenges we face in the drugs area continue to grow,” said Alexis Goosdeel, head of the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction…

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