According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), drug trafficking is a global illicit industry that includes cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited substances. Drug trafficking occurs throughout the world with some illicit drugs originating in foreign countries and then travelling throughout the world to other countries.
Central Asia
In 2009, Afghanistan supplied 90 percent of the global supply of opium, earning as much as $55 billion annually. Drugs are moved out of Central Asia into Western Europe and Russia via the Balkan and northern routes. In addition, China and Southeast Asian countries are finding a growing amount of opium trafficking occurring in their countries as it travels to markets in other parts of Asia, North America and Oceania. In addition to opiates, cannabis production is also growing in Central Asia, and many believe the hashish trade has grown as large as Morocco, previously thought to be one of the largest cannabis supplying countries in the world.
Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean
Mexico, Central America and The Caribbean are considered transit countries for cocaine heading to North America and Europe. In most cases cocaine is transported from Colombia into Mexico or Central America on boats and then transported on land into the United States and Canada. Estimates are that 90 percent of the cocaine enters the United States through the state of Texas, while 70 percent of the cocaine leaving Colombia travels across the Pacific Ocean. Although a large amount of the cocaine seized in Europe comes from Colombia, Bolivia and Peru originated cocaine is also prevalent in drug trafficking in European countries.
Middle East and North Africa
Amphetamine seizures are common in the Middle East and North Africa, especially tablets bearing the Captagon logo that include psychoactive ingredients. It is believed that laboratories creating the drugs exist in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the Syrian Arab Republic, which serve as transit points on drug trafficking routes. The tablets are found in consumer markets in Saudi Arabia as well, and Turkey is a well-known transit country for heroin. Morocco has the largest seizures of cannabis, but Afghanastan is growing as a producer of hashish.
West and Central Africa
Guinea-Bissau and along the Bight of Benin, which stretches from Ghana to Nigeria, emerged in recent years as distinct drug trafficking hubs in West Africa, while Colombian traffickers transported cocaine via ship into Spain and Portugal. As payment for the assistance of the West Africans, drug traffickers left some of the cocaine in that country, who trafficked the drugs via small aircraft out of Venezuela into other West African destinations.
United States
Drug trafficking in the United States is very profitable for the ruthless, sophisticated and aggressive people who bring cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into the country amid the 400 million tons of cargo that enters the country every year. Drugs are normally trafficked into the United States from the countries that produce them, such as Afghanistan, Colombia and Morocco. Many of these drugs are then trafficked out of the United States into Canada and Europe.
Drug trafficking throughout the world is a growing threat to the security of countries everywhere, and government officials spend a significant amount of resources in an effort to combat the illicit drug trade globally.
