It is the ultimate confirmation that West Africa functions as the new hub for cocaine smuggling to Western Europe: a record seizure of thirty thousand kilos of cocaine in Spain. This consignment was found last week on board the Arconian, a ship boarded by the navy on the high seas, just south of the Azores. The golden tip, so it became obsolete A.Dcame from American and Dutch police informants.
The Arconian was en route from Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, to Libya. That is striking. Until recently, large shipments of cocaine were usually intercepted en route from Latin America to Western Europe. Until 2023, the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam were the most important transhipment points for these drugs. That year, 160,000 kilos of coke were intercepted in these ports, a record.
In the Netherlands, the wholesale price for cocaine has never been so low: 12,000 euros per kilo
But in the ports of Belgium and the Netherlands, investigating officers are now twiddling their thumbs, says one of them. Less and less cocaine is being found.
And yet the wholesale price for the drug in the Netherlands has never been so low: 12,000 euros per kilo. And in Spain the price for orders of 100 kilos or more was sometimes even 10,000 euros per kilo, sources from the criminal environment report.
This paradox – fewer seizures and yet a historically low price – can therefore be explained by West Africa as a new hub in the drug trade. The seizure of the Arconian confirms a trend that has been warned about for a few years.
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West African trampoline
In April 2023, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted that West Africa is becoming increasingly important for drug trafficking. That conclusion was based on the interception of 57,000 kilos of cocaine between 2019 and 2022 in West African countries such as Ghana, Guinea and Senegal. These figures put the size of the intercepted thirty thousand kilos into perspective: ‘the West African trampoline’, as this route was baptized, is more popular than ever.
Since the Arconian was loaded in Sierra Leone and five Dutch and one Surinamese were found on board, the investigation and the criminal environment point specifically to one man: 34-year-old Brabander ‘Bolle’ Jos Leijdekkers. The Netherlands has offered 200,000 euros for the tip that leads to the arrest of Leijdekkers, who was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2024 for drug trafficking and violent crimes. He has also been convicted several times in Belgium.
It was unveiled early last year A.D and Follow the Money that Leijdekkers lives in Sierra Leone and maintains good ties with the country’s president, Julius Maada Bio. That is not proof of Leijdekkers’ involvement in the Arconian. Moreover, these large parties rarely have one owner; the investment and associated risk are simply too great.
The harbor with the green ship that transported the cocaine on the left.
Photo Borja Suarez / Reuters
Wholesale price
But there is no doubt that Leijdekkers plays an important role in the smuggling of cocaine, according to sources within the investigation and the criminal environment. At the beginning of this year, a story circulated among criminals that Leijdekkers had sold a batch of 28,000 kilos of cocaine within 24 hours to middlemen who distributed the drugs in Europe. Those who bought in bulk – at least a thousand kilos – received a discount of 2,000 euros per kilo on the wholesale price.
That example points to yet another change in the drug market. Colombia in particular is producing more than ever, which explains the more than halving of the wholesale price in two years – from 28,000 euros per kilo in August 2024 to 12,000 euros this spring.
The Spanish record – until last week’s 30,000 kilos – was 13,000 kilos, intercepted in Algeciras at the end of 2024
This price drop puts pressure on the margins of drug smugglers. One of the ways to compensate for this is to increase volume. And that is exactly what has stood out in Spain in recent years: the intercepted parties are becoming increasingly larger. The Spanish record stood – until last week – at 13,000 kilos, intercepted in Algeciras at the end of 2024.
That is not the only thing that is striking. Last month, five thousand kilos were intercepted near the southern Spanish city of Huelva, a shipment brought ashore by fast boats from the Mediterranean to avoid checks at major ports. In addition to the cocaine, a large amount of fuel was also found on board the Arconian, possibly to refuel such fast boats with which the ship had to be unloaded. That seems to be part of the new smuggling method.
Wave of cocaine
In a major operation early this year, Spanish police reported that cocaine was being transferred from ships in the Mediterranean Sea and on the Atlantic coast to designated transhipment facilities. The speedboats moored at these pontoons to load cocaine and bring it ashore. A similar operation last April found another 11,000 kilos of cocaine, 8,500 kilos of hashish and 30,000 liters of petrol.
Two blows for drug smuggling within a few weeks. According to a Dutch drug trafficker in Spain, it remains to be seen whether this means the end of the wave of cocaine entering via the Iberian Peninsula. You can get as much as you want here, he texts, and the price isn’t going up yet.
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