Cocaine plague on the rise in Nordic countries

In Sweden, customs officials found 460 kilos of cocaine in Helsingborg earlier this year. At the beginning of August, several media outlets reported a seizure of eight tonnes of cocaine in Rotterdam. Europe is currently characterised by an increase in the amount of cocaine seized. Norway can also report record numbers of seizures of cocaine in the first half of 2023, Norway’s organised crime police Kripos, said in a press release, according to NTB.
     “In the first half of the year, 1,753 kilos of cocaine have been found after 995 seizures. This is the largest amount seized in Norway so far,” Kari Frey Solvik, head of drug analysis at Kripos, told NTB. Solvik said the record could be linked to three major seizures in which 803, 712 and 150 kilos of cocaine were found. According to Kripos, the number of seizures of cocaine has increased by 30 percent since last year. After several years of a decrease in the number of drug cases, the number is again rising in Norway. Kripos writes in a press release that it is still too early to say whether this is an isolated case or if there has been a trend change.
     In Denmark, the frequency of cocaine seizures of appears also to be on the increase. Last year, Denmark seized 352 kilos of cocaine. /ritzau/