Criminal drug gangs have become a serious and growing threat to Europe’s internal security, exploiting a surge in South American cocaine, corrupting public officials, and deploying hired assassins as part of increasingly sophisticated operations, according to the European Union’s drugs agency. In comments to the Financial Times, Alexis Goosdeel, the outgoing director of the EU Drugs Agency (EUDA), said policymakers had underestimated the scale and speed of the threat while distracted by overlapping crises ranging from terrorism and Covid-19 to the war in Ukraine.
Goosdeel said Europe is only beginning to grasp the scale of what he described as the “hyper-availability” of illegal drugs and the depth of criminal infiltration into ports, police forces, and judicial systems. Speaking at the end of his 10-year tenure at the Lisbon-based agency, he warned that authorities had uncovered only a fraction of the problem. “We discovered the tip of the iceberg and we have not seen what is under the surface,” he told the Financial Times, adding that the true dimensions of the criminal networks were still impossible to imagine.
Recent events across the continent have underscored those concerns. In southern Spain, a police union said the state had “lost control” of the fight against drug traffickers. In Belgium, a judge warned the country risked becoming a “narco-state”. In France, the killing of an anti-drug activist’s brother in Marseille intensified fears that the country could be heading down a similar path, highlighting the spillover of drug-related violence into everyday life.
According to Goosdeel, the illicit drug trade now poses a “multidimensional” threat to Europe, combining lethal violence with systematic attempts to undermine institutions through corruption and intimidation. He said the danger level was already high and rising. This month, the European Commission acknowledged the scale of the challenge by unveiling a new narcotics action plan that described drug trafficking as a “major threat to Europeans’ wellbeing” requiring a stronger, more coordinated EU-wide response.
A key driver of the current crisis has been a sharp increase in the production and trafficking of cocaine from countries such as Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Goosdeel said Europe has seen an exponential rise in cocaine availability over the past six to seven years, accompanied by stable prices and unusually high purity levels. This abundance has intensified competition among rival criminal groups, pushing them to seek new customers or encourage higher levels of consumption.
At the same time, Europe is seeing the growth of what Goosdeel called “crime as a service”, a model in which criminal capabilities can be outsourced. This includes paid assassins recruited via social media, often young people who are transported across borders to carry out killings before being sent home, as well as specialists who can establish industrial-scale drug laboratories on demand.
Large-scale trafficking through commercial shipping containers has also become a central feature of the European drug trade, a route that was far less prominent a decade ago. Ports such as Antwerp have introduced tighter controls, including biometric identification for dock workers and stricter access rules for containers and cranes. But Goosdeel warned that criminal organisations quickly adapt, shifting their focus to corrupting managers and decision-makers who control container movements. “Criminal organisations will not easily renounce corruption,” he said. “They try at every level.”
There have been some signs of progress. Goosdeel described as encouraging the recent increase in European criminals being extradited from places such as Dubai, which remains a haven for high-profile figures including Daniel Kinahan, the alleged leader of the Kinahan organised crime group. Still, he cautioned that enforcement alone would not be enough to stem the problem.
Beyond policing, Goosdeel argued that governments must confront the social and economic drivers behind rising drug use. He pointed to growing reliance on both illicit substances and misused medicines to cope with anxiety, stress, and performance pressures, a trend he linked to job insecurity, housing shortages, and the psychological impact of recent global crises. He stressed that a larger user base does not automatically mean more criminals or addicts.
A more effective response, he said, would combine law enforcement with greater investment in harm reduction, updated treatment approaches for cocaine dependence, and policies that address the root causes of drug abuse. As European governments face pressure to cut social spending while increasing defence budgets, Goosdeel warned that neglecting social cohesion could worsen the problem. “We are at a moment where it’s really time to find a way to reinvest in living together,” he said.
