Drug Trafficking Surges in North Africa as COVID-19 Diverts Security Focus

According to alyaoum24.com, international cannabis trafficking networks are taking advantage of the concentration of security services on the fight against COVID-19 to expand their criminal activities throughout North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. These networks are sending large shipments of cannabis from the Moroccan coasts to Libya, along the Algerian and Tunisian coasts, before crossing the sea to Catalonia in Spain. They could reach up to 6 tons of cannabis resin per boat, worth several tens of millions of dirhams. Nearly 179 tons of cannabis were seized in 2019 by the various control and security services in Morocco, we learn.

According to the Spanish police, an international criminal network has recently been dismantled. These traffickers were trying to establish themselves since 2019 as a powerful alternative to all the other cannabis trafficking networks between Morocco and the "Iberian Triangle", that is to say the route of the eastern Mediterranean. This network "loads the cannabis in Moroccan waters and transports it via the Algerian and Tunisian coasts to Libya, from where it is transported to Spain," considered one of the European outlets for cannabis, we are told.

Several other shipments have been seized in Spain and Morocco. The largest was seized in Catalonia during two police operations. They made it possible to seize 11 tons of cannabis. During this operation, 16 Spanish, Algerian and Tunisian smugglers were arrested and Moroccans were prosecuted. To this haul is added the seizure of four boats dedicated to drug trafficking, three vehicles, electronic equipment and documents.

For the same media, citing a Catalan customs official, the network is not afraid of the coronavirus or bad weather conditions. Its members are trying to take advantage of these circumstances to increase their profits and take advantage of the halt in the activity of other networks to sell their cannabis "at a very high price."

The other major seizure that took place in Morocco was of 7.2 tons of chira intended for international maritime trafficking, during an operation that led to the arrest of 3 individuals. According to the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN), the driver and his accomplices got rid of some drug packages by throwing them on the side of the highway and attacked the police with stone throwing.