Spanish police have uncovered a significant shift in the tactics of international drug cartels, driven by a dramatic fall in the wholesale price of cocaine. Traffickers are now reusing expensive custom-built 'narco-submarines' for multiple voyages, where they previously scuttled the vessels after single trips.
The Economics of a Saturated Cocaine Market
According to Alberto Morales, head of the central narcotics brigade of Spain's Policía Nacional, the change is a direct result of market forces. Wholesale cocaine prices have halved to around €15,000 (£13,000) per kilo in recent years due to massive production and market saturation. This has made the previous 'one-way trip' model for semi-submersibles financially unsustainable.
"Back then, the cost of the merchandise in comparison with the cost of the vessel still made doing that very worthwhile," Morales explained. The vessels, costing approximately €600,000 (£524,000) to build, would carry a minimum of three to four tonnes. "But what’s happened lately is that the price of the merchandise is really, really low, so the organisations have, logically, had a rethink."
From Graveyard to Refuelling Platform
The new strategy involves avoiding the so-called 'narco-sub graveyard' in the eastern Atlantic, an area between the Azores and the Canary Islands where vessels were once routinely sunk. Instead, cartels now unload their cargo at sea, establish floating refuelling platforms, and send the semi-submersibles back to South America for reuse.
While these vessels have been used off Colombia and Central America since the 1980s, they were first detected in European waters in 2006, when an abandoned sub was found in a Galician estuary. Spanish authorities have since logged 10 such vessels, but Morales admits the true number is certainly higher. "We can’t detect everything that reaches the Spanish coast as we have 8,000km of coastline," he stated.
Shifting Trends in Drug Trafficking and Production
The reuse of narco-subs is part of a broader evolution in the European drug trade. Spanish police and customs seized a record 123 tonnes of cocaine in 2024, up from 118 tonnes in 2023. Morales noted a clear uptick in narco-sub activity over the past two years, with sailboats being used less frequently.
In a related development, Spanish police are also dismantling a growing number of synthetic drug laboratories. Officers have closed more amphetamine, methamphetamine, and MDMA labs in the past two years than in the previous 18. Seizures from these facilities include over five tonnes of MDMA, indicating a significant shift in production geography away from its traditional hub in the Netherlands to countries like Spain, France, and Germany.
"We’ve been pretty surprised by the synthetic drugs phenomenon because of the numbers of the laboratories we’re dismantling," a senior officer said, noting that gangs are using rural locations and even drones for security.
The combination of falling cocaine profits and the expansion of synthetic drug manufacturing within Europe points to a rapidly adapting and resilient criminal landscape, challenging law enforcement across the continent.
