Port of Santos gains space in cocaine trafficking, sees crime change
The Port of Santos broke another record last year. It handled 162.4 million tonnes of cargo. The transaction value was $174.6 billion. Soybeans, corn, orange juice, meat, and cellulose are among the cargoes that pass in greater volume on the freighters that leave the port every day. In the first months of 2023, the numbers continue to impress. Nearly 30% of Brazil’s total trade passes through Santos. But Brazil’s largest port has also figured in another kind of statistic for years: that of the international cocaine trade.Between 2016 and 2022, the Federal Revenue seized 126 tonnes of the drug in containers or hidden in parts of ships that were about to set sail. This year, up to June, it was 6 tonnes. The destination is almost always Europe. According to European authorities, Santos appears to be the world’s second-largest supplier of cocaine to the Old Continent.In recent weeks, Valor has gathered data and reports from the Federal Police, the Federal Revenue, the Prosecution Service, the São Paulo Security Secretariat, and European Union officials that help paint an updated portrait of how crime has exploited the country’s port structures — especially in Santos.The involvement of local traffickers in trade with Europe has helped change the criminal landscape of the southern coast of São Paulo in recent years, prosecutors say.Since the end of July, the São Paulo government has maintained a special operation in the region around Santos. The operation began after a police officer was murdered. And although the focus is not on the fight against international drug trafficking in Santos, this is the main background that the police officers involved in the operation have to deal with.The exploitation by drug traffickers of the port of Santos, as well as others in the country, is a problem without a clear solution, and one that exposes the limitations of police, customs agents, and other authorities around the world. Europe’s major ports have also proven to be very porous to crime.Despite constant variations, the modus operandi is usually to disguise the illegal in the legal.In September, traffickers packed 772 kilograms of cocaine into a shipment of 640 bags of coffee from Santos to the Belgian port of Antwerp, Europe’s second largest. A sniffer dog and the use of scanners assisted the Federal Revenue and Federal Police agents in the seizure.In February, the cover was a container of bags of peanuts to be exported to Poland. The freighter was...
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