ARTE RE: Europas Abwehrkampf gegen das Kokain

Increasingly large quantities of cocaine are making their way to Europe across the Atlantic. For drug cartels, the sea route to Europe has long been established: difficult to control, riddled with gaps and blind spots. For investigators, it poses a challenge—a cat-and-mouse game along the coasts and on the open sea. That is why the “Maritime Analysis and Operations Center – Narcotics” (MAOC-N) also focuses on the western flank of the continent. From its headquarters in Lisbon, the organization coordinates international cooperation in the fight against smuggling along the transatlantic sea route.

The southern Spanish coast, in particular, is considered a gateway. In the strait between Europe and Africa—once primarily a route for hashish from Morocco—investigators are increasingly seizing cocaine on high-powered speedboats. But the cocaine reaches the European mainland via various routes: modified containers, specialized freighters, transfers on the high seas—even homemade submarines. This is one reason why security agencies are trying to intercept shipments while they are still in the Atlantic. If enforcement pressure increases in one area, the routes and methods change.

Europe’s major ports have been hubs of trade for years. From here, goods are distributed across the entire continent. Cocaine has become cheaper, and the crack produced during its manufacture is reaching Europe with significant social consequences. North Sea ports in the Netherlands and Germany have tightened their controls, even screening their own staff for possible ties to criminal networks. Yet criminal networks sometimes bypass the ports—for example, via river estuaries and smaller ports. But the drug’s route always crosses the Atlantic first.
ARTE Re: meets with analysts at the coordination center and accompanies enforcement teams at sea. The film shows what Europe’s security agencies are up against in the fight against cocaine and how dynamically a global logistics network reacts as soon as control mechanisms change. Organized crime is well organized. How well can Europe control its maritime border?

A production by Dokness on behalf of Hessischer Rundfunk for ARTE 2026.