Drug traffickers are increasingly using Oslo as a gateway to Europe, said Anne Lindboe, the mayor of the Norwegian capital. She said 8 tons of illegal drugs are already entering Norway each year, and the capital's port is “too poorly guarded.”
Oslo Mayor Anne Lindboe said a few days ago in an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the local port, which is also the largest port in Norwayis increasingly a place through which illegal substances enter Europe. – It seems that the port of Oslo is becoming the port in Europe that is preferred by criminal gangs – she emphasized.
Drug smuggling into Europe
According to Lindboe, quoted by NRK, up to 8 tons of drugs with a total value of up to 8 billion Norwegian kroner (approx. PLN 2.9 billion) are smuggled into Norway each year, and a significant part of this passes through the port of Oslo.
At the same time, the city's mayor noted that the port, which receives between 50 and 70 ships a week, is “a bit under-guarded”. NRK notes that the port does not even have its own permanent scanner to scan containers and detect illegal substances. Oslo has to share it with two ports in nearby cities, and when it is unavailable, customs officers use handheld devices that do not guarantee such high detection rates.
Karin Tanderø Schaug of the Norwegian trade union Tolerforbundet believes that the situation related to organized crime in the country is at a “critical” level and that it is necessary to “strengthen the customs service”. “This fight is very important. We cannot afford to underestimate the importance of border controls,” she said. She also admitted that the service does not scan the cargo of ships in port as often because “they do not have enough staff and equipment”.
NRK also points out that Norway is currently the third largest cocaine-consuming country in Europe. In 2023, customs seized a record amount of the drug.
Drug smuggling center
Currently, the Belgian city of Antwerp is considered the European centre of drug smuggling. In January, Belgian authorities quoted by the BBC as saying that in 2023, a record amount of cocaine was seized in the local port – 116 tonnes. The station pointed out that the drugs that arrived there came mainly from South America. “Driving through the vast port of Antwerp, you can immediately understand why cocaine gangs have committed themselves to making it their capital of import (of drugs – ed.) (…). It is a 160 km long quay where millions of tonnes of goods are unloaded from ships and sent to all corners of the continent,” the station wrote.
However, the Guardian reports that Antwerp customs recently reported that the amount of cocaine seized by the authorities has halved because criminals have changed their smuggling routes due to increased controls at the city port. – If Antwerp increases controls, criminals change routes, then Norway could easily become a transit country, just like Sweden – says Tanderø Schaug.
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