UK streets are said to be flooding with £4 billion worth of Colombian cocaine – with the drug arriving in the country in a bizarre undersea operation.
There has been a record number of drug busts at UK ports after there was a huge surge in production in the world’s cocaine capital, Colombia.
There of thousands of gangs who are currently supplying insatiable UK users – who consume 128 tons a year of cocaine, as reported by The Mirror.
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It is believed the narcotics trail stems back to Colombia’s capital, Bogota, where the country’s former police chief said the drug lords hide under a “veil of respectability to ply their illegal trade with greater success than ever before.”
Colombia has long been the world’s largest cocaine producer, with 60% of the total crop. The next biggest, neighbouring Peru, produces a quarter. Their harvests of coca bushes have hit record highs in recent years.
(Image: Colombian National Navy/AFP via)
General Cárdenas said: “When I was head of anti-narcotics five years ago, we had maintained production at around 130,000 hectares.
“Today we are above 240,000. There is an overproduction worldwide and the demand for Colombian cocaine has been growing in Britain.
“Each player specialises in one part of the chain. One is in charge of the operational part, others of production, others of security, and others are in charge of corruption towards the authorities.”
(Image: Stan Kujawa)
He added: “The shipment of drugs from Colombia is no longer so direct – it used to go through the Caribbean Sea, directly to North America or Europe.
“Now they go around the Southern Cone of Latin America, passing through Argentina and to Brazil, they jump to Africa and from Africa they go to Europe, especially ports in Holland, Belgium and Spain.
“And to North America it always goes through Central America, stopping off in Ecuador.”
(Image: NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY/AFP via Ge)
It is thought bananas hid what is believed to be the UK’s biggest ever seizure of Class A drugs to this day.
It was in February of this year, when National Crime Agency officers found 6.3 tons of cocaine, worth more than £450m, at Southampton port.
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