A gram of cocaine costs $16 in South America, $100-130 in Europe and $330 in Australia – so cocaine producers in South America want Australians to buy their product. The challenge has been getting it to the other side of the world. Until now.
In 2017-2018, Australia received nine times the weight of smuggled cocaine via air cargo from South Africa than any other country. In June this year, 384kg of cocaine was discovered in an excavator sent from South Africa.
The largest haul of intercepted cocaine in Australia is coming from South Africa. Source: SSPL
Globalization is changing Africa’s drug market
Though South Africa has emerged as a large supplier in trafficked cocaine to Australia, parts of the African continent have become hotspots for methamphetamine production and transport – creating opportunities for other illicit drug trafficking.
West coast countries have emerged as producers while China’s major Belt and Roads initiative has established major trade routes to East Africa that can then spread across the continent.
The Belts and Roads project is an investment from the Chinese government in a series of ports, roads, oil and gas pipelines and rail lines around the world that link back to Beijing – creating legitimate trade between China and other countries.
“The problem is that for all the good things it does, it gives an opportunity for organised crime to take advantage of the trade route,” Dr Michael Kennedy – a former NSW detective and now Criminology and Policing lecturer at Western Sydney University tells Dateline.
“The problem with the trade route in East Africa is that you’re dealing with a lot of countries that are in conflict.
“It’s unstable and really ripe for the mass production of any sort of drugs like amphetamines with any sort of laboratories.
“It’s also ripe to transport drugs by heavy vehicle to a port, like in South Africa where they have a number of good ports where they can go off anywhere else in the world like Australia.”
The balloon effect
One of the reasons for South Africa’s emergence as a drug trafficking country to Australia is because of what criminologists call the balloon effect. All cocaine is supplied from South America, but clamping down on one part of the transit route has shown it shifts into another region.
“If you squeeze the balloon you’re just going to squeeze air into another part. You squeeze supply from one part to another,” says criminologist Dr James Martin.
“As long as supply exists, which it does, and as long as demand exists, and it does and is steadily growing, then there will be a trafficking route that is being used.”
Estimates from the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program reveal Australia consumed 4,115kg of cocaine per in 2017-18 while 1,970kg was seized.
But Martin says supply intervention is not efficient at reducing drug harm in Australia.
“[Police] are not reducing the accessibility of these drugs, so what’s the point of reducing supply?”
A bust in November 2017 seized approximately 300kg of cocaine from Mexico. Traffickers now route drugs through other countries to avoid suspicion. Source: Getty Images AsiaPac
How the dark web is changing trafficking
While South Africa has become a leading cocaine trafficker to Australia, the dark web – where unlisted websites allow the secure and anonymous purchase of drugs from anywhere around the world – is changing the way a range of illicit drugs are trafficked.
Previously, Australia’s domestic cultivation of cannabis restricted the profitability of importation.
The dark web has become so easy to use and reliable that Australians are increasingly ordering from overseas than buy locally-produced marijuana. There has been a 466 per cent increase in the weight of marijuana seized going into Australia in 2017-18.
Nearly all the world’s cocaine is produced in South America. But buying from South America is likely to make Australian Customs officials suspicious. So, when Australians buy drugs on the dark net, they usually buy from safe countries like the UK that are known for receiving the drugs -rather than producing or shipping them.
“It makes it very difficult for Australian customs and border force to intercept because there’s so much legitimate business and commercial mail that is forwarded between Australia and the UK,” Martin says.
Drugs are now shipped or sent via air mail among a growing amount of international cargo from previously unexpected countries - offering new opportunities for traffickers and producers, and potentially forcing a rethink of how Australia reduces drug harm.
