European SEACOP project prevents more than a tonne of cocaine from reaching Europe

Through the European SEACOP project, the GRES-South Atlantic initiative has been launched and its implementation has enabled an operation that has prevented the arrival of more than one tonne of cocaine in Europe.

The European SEACOP project supports the creation of specific strategies that take into account the current threats in the different regions in order to create more effective and efficient actions. As an example of this, the GRES South Atlantic is the special maritime-river response offered by the project to support the fight against drug trafficking and organised crime from the Paraná waterway to the exit to the Atlantic Ocean, establishing a comprehensive and methodological strategy with a 360º vision and a clear projection of international cooperation.

As part of this strategy, the countries participating in GRES South Atlantic, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, together with Senegal, started in early June a coordinated and inter-institutional work focused on obtaining and exchanging maritime-river intelligence information in order to combat organised crime in a comprehensive manner.

As a result, and after the investigative analysis of the participants, it was considered appropriate to establish a joint operation in order to carry out a large number of operational controls in different maritime ports and marinas strategically selected by each of the countries, such as Santos, Montevideo, Rio de la Plata or Dakar etc.

For perfect national and international coordination, two operational coordination centres were established in Argentina and Senegal, from where all the actions carried out in the different countries have been coordinated, obtaining a series of results in terms of seizures, captures and obtaining surprising lines of investigation in just a few weeks since its creation.

This work has been carried out in collaboration with EMPACT, the Central Narcotics Brigade of the Spanish National Police, the COLIBRI project, and the EUROFRONT and RFAI projects.

Due to the success of the GRES South Atlantic initiative, the aim is to incorporate new countries and institutions with the objective of adding new capacities to strengthen this SEACOP Special Response Group. In fact, this working model is intended to be replicated with the creation of GRES-Ports, focused on strengthening the work between the main port terminals of the Pacific and the Caribbean.

The results obtained by the GRES South Atlantic have been: 800 kilograms of cocaine seized in Argentina; 380 kilograms of cocaine in Brazil; 1,000 kilograms of marijuana in Paraguay; more than 10 people captured in the different operations; more than 15 inspections of cargo ships, pleasure boats, etc.; more than 10 inspections of maritime containers; many operational controls of aircraft, all coordinated by the Colibri Project and different lines of investigation opened.