Various events and recent news (highlighting the growing influence and corruption of criminal organisations in Belgium and the Netherlands, the French government’s announcement that customs would be stepped up to deal with the increasing infiltration of French ports by drug mafias, the growing number of settlements of scores in the south of France etc.) tend to show that mafias are occupying an increasingly large area in Europe, and no longer just in Italy. Is this media coverage proportionate to reality? Is the weight and influence of criminal organisations on legal institutions increasing? And what are the risks of this trend becoming more pronounced? To shed some light on these questions, Marie Ségur interviewed Clotilde Champeyrache, a specialist in these issues at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.
Are there any recent signs of an increase in drug-related crime in Europe?
C.C.: Yes, drug trafficking is booming on the European continent,[1] as it is everywhere else in the world. There are several reasons for this:
• The globalised liberal economy has been a facilitating factor in the trafficking of drugs and counterfeit medicines, thanks to the increase in the flow of goods, which means that larger volumes of products can be moved, but also because the logic of profit has taken precedence over security policies. The Port of Rotterdam Authority 2021 annual report is a perfect example. In it, the port authority tends to shirk its responsibility for the criminal activities that may take place in the port: “Tackling subversive crime is a challenge facing society as a whole that, strictly speaking, is not the responsibility of the Port of Rotterdam Authority”.[2] In this report, the port defends its competitiveness by highlighting the massification of flows, with an average rate of one container handled every six seconds. To slow down this rate for controls would be to risk losing money and customers to other ports. The reaction of the port’s management is entirely revealing of the attitude of certain players in the legal economy, who only comply with the law according to a cost-benefit calculation in which the financial interest in defrauding or complying with the rules is assessed as a priority, far more than moral issues. More generally, it can be said that the relationship between the law and ethics is eroding in European societies. This is particularly true in France where, on an individual level, we are seeing an increase in refusals to comply with police orders, for example.
• At the same time, this growth in drug trafficking can be explained by the diversification and normalisation of drug use — some users, for example, take cocaine to keep up with the pace of work — as well as by the diversification of the supply itself and its greater accessibility, with a variety of products making it possible to adapt to supply shortages and user profiles (more or less young, more or less financially well-off); ...