Criminal Networks and Routes from the Caribbean to Europe: a deep-dive into cocaine trafficking and other illicit activities

The Caribbean has evolved from a transit corridor primarily serving the United States into a pivotal hub for cocaine shipments bound for Europe's expanding consumer markets. The region's strategic geography, diverse transport infrastructure, and close political and commercial ties to Europe make it exceptionally well-suited to drug trafficking operations. Criminal networks operating across the Caribbean are largely decentralised and transactional, functioning more as flexible service providers than as rigid, hierarchical organisations. South American producers — mainly Colombian — supply the cocaine, whilst international brokers, many from Europe and the Western Balkans, coordinate logistics and financing from a distance. Local facilitators across islands such as the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Guianas handle ground-level reception, storage, and onward distribution. The Dominican Republic stands out as the region's most significant transshipment hub, owing to its deep-water ports and direct shipping routes to Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Algeciras. French and Dutch overseas territories, including Martinique, Guadeloupe, Curaçao, and Aruba, present particular vulnerabilities as they afford traffickers direct access to European markets whilst often bypassing standard customs controls. The United States naval deployment and intervention in Venezuela in late 2025 and early 2026 has disrupted certain routes, yet there is little evidence of any sustained reduction in the overall flow of cocaine reaching Europe. Corruption at ports, airports, and within state institutions remains a fundamental enabler of trafficking at every stage of the supply chain. The report concludes that effective countermeasures must combine international cooperation, intelligence sharing, anti-corruption efforts, and attention to the socioeconomic conditions that allow trafficking networks to continually regenerate.