Europe

Abstract

The Schengen area has become the largest drug consumer market on the planet in recent years. The seizures carried out in Spain in and 1999 suggest that the country is the main entry point for hashish and cocaine in the Schengen zone. The final stages of transforming opium and morphine base into heroin occur, for the most part, in Turkey, then the opiate is sent on the Balkan route (where Rumania has confirmed its role as a major “warehouse country”) for sale on Western European markets. As for synthetic drugs, they are manufactured in Western Europe itself, especially in Britain, The Netherlands and Spain. European traffickers continue to operate behind the scenes but on a large scale. This is especially true of the Dutch and British, the Galicians in Spain, the survivors of the Mediterranean Milieu in France and, above all, the Italian mafias. The latter have redeployed throughout Italy and particularly in the industrial north, giving up some of their activities to foreign organizations. Generally, non-Western European mafias, especially Colombian, Turkish and Albanian (from Kosovo and Albania) groups, have become stronger, either by striking partnerships with local criminals or by becoming autonomous from them.