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FISHING BOAT OWNERS are turning to trafficking huge amounts of drugs into Ireland and countries across the African and European Atlantic seaboard due to dwindling fish stocks and to deal with debt, according to a senior European policing official.
This is the message from Sjoerd Top, the executive director of the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics (MAOC-N), the EU’s hub for analysing the drug trade coming into Europe, which is based in the Portuguese city of Lisbon.
The Journal sat down for an exclusive chat with Top about his team’s work and the current situation for organised crime and drug smuggling operations in the seas around Portugal, Ireland and other countries.
In a wide-ranging interview he spoke about the threat to the EU’s fishing communities and how drug smugglers in the Mediterranean are engaging in high-speed drug runs, as well as exploiting vulnerable migrants in people trafficking operations.
MAOC is based in a non-descript office block deep in the sprawling and picturesque Portuguese capital city.
Inside, the only signs that this building is involved in the serious business of drug interdiction are the images of military boarding parties and seized shipments on the walls.
In the boardroom the Irish flag stands proudly amongst the other member states and in an office nearby sit two Irish representatives – one from Revenue Customs and the other a garda detective. Ireland has sent the officers to facilitate the sharing of Irish intelligence with the other partner nations.
Top is a senior Dutch law enforcement officer seconded to the centre which was previously led by former garda Deputy Commissioner Michael O’Sullivan.
MAOC-N is an initiative by six EU member states: France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal, as well as the United Kingdom, co-funded by the Internal Security Fund of the European Union.
The role of the team in Lisbon is one of intelligence facilitation: they receive information gathered by member states and then build a picture to coordinate the response.
They don’t do the investigation but instead analyse details such as the owners of boats involved in drug running, the identities of the crews, and see if there are any connections between them and the organised criminals shipping massive quantities of drugs to the European continent.
As reported by The Journal, large quantities of drugs come to Europe from South America on board cargo ships via Dutch ports, but MAOC-N is dedicated only to dealing with smaller vessels which are making the crossing from South America and Africa with large quantities of drugs onboard.
Ireland has seen the benefit of its involvement with MAOC-N: sailing vessels carrying tonnes of drugs have been intercepted before they could reach the island, and even a small light aircraft flying from Dieppe in France to Abbeyshrule in County Longford was stopped.
There are a multitude of routes in but Top said a key issue is that members of fishing fleets are allowing their vessels be used for trafficking. He was keen to stress that it is not the whole of the fishing community but rather individuals within it.
“Organised crime groups always try to search for the best opportunity to corrupt people and most of the time, those are people that have a lack of money and a lot of problems, financial problems,” he said.
“We are all aware that the fishing communities are having a hard time at the moment because of economic problems, but also welfare and environmental issues regarding fishing.
“If there is no fish to be found because there was too much fishing, they don’t make the money. If they did a big investment in their vessels, they cannot make the money [to pay off the loan] for that by fishing, then they will probably find another solution. And that could also be getting involved in organised crime groups,” he added.
Top said fishing vessels are acting as so-called donor vessels that sail from a port in Ireland or elsewhere to meet a “mother ship” which is carrying the bulk of the drugs deep in international waters.
It is not just hard-up fishing captains either – Top said there is also a problem with people in the yachting fraternity allowing their vessels to be used.
“Organised crime is always looking for vulnerable people – it’s very easy for them to ask you to do a very small favour, because probably the first time they won’t ask you to bring in five tons of cocaine.
“They will ask you to do a small job with some good money but the next time they will ask you to do a much bigger shipment and when you say no they will tell you that they will go to the police about the original job,” he added.
Top said MAOC-N has become aware of cases across Europe and Africa where police officers, customs, dock workers and politicians are all in the pay of organised crime.
“After the first step, it’s very, very difficult to get out. So that’s a huge warning to people: don’t do this small job where you think, ‘okay, that doesn’t really harm me or the society’,” he said.
It was clear that Top was aware of some of the coverage in Ireland around the capabilities of the Irish Naval Service.
He did not address resourcing concerns directly but instead said: “Since my tenure as a director started we have never asked the support of the Irish authorities where they said that they are not able to support us in a case.”
The Journal confirmed this with multiple security sources in Ireland familiar with naval operations, with one stating firmly: “Everything else gets dropped when MAOC calls”.
Top said that it is not just an Irish issue as the war in Ukraine has put pressure on naval assets across Europe. He said that they are seeing navy ships and aircraft sent on specific maritime security operations now to monitor situations arising from that war.
The director added that instability in Africa, particularly in the sub-Saharan Sahel region, was being exploited by drug gangs but said that there was evidence that terrorist groups were using the drugs smuggling trade to fundraise.
One key route for drugs from South America has been through Cape Verde and Senegal on the west coast of Africa and then up through the continent to fast boats which then cross into Europe. Top said there was growing evidence also that people traffickers operating in North Africa were also heavily involved in the drugs trade.
He said the US Coast Guard was now operating in the seas near Cape Verde and off the coast of Senegal and elsewhere to combat the flow of drugs. The US is engaged in this operation as it has adopted an approach to target drug smugglers from South America cartels regardless of their locations. They are not the only navy out there with many European ships, including Ireland, watching on.
On the day we meet, Top hinted that military and law enforcement officers were monitoring a shipment in the Atlantic, waiting to intercept it.
As it turned out later, that operation was a success: the Spanish National Police intercepted a yacht carrying 2.7 tonnes of cocaine approximately 600 natical miles south-west of the Canary Islands. It was a supply of drugs linked to a Balkan organised crime group.
The seizure brought MAOC-N over the line with over 1,000 tonnes worth of drugs being intercepted since it was founded in 2007.
While that operation concludes, other operations continue – Top finishes the interview and makes his way to a meeting with plain clothes experts from a European country.
As we leave MAOC-N’s office we observe the waiting investigators clutching intelligence folders – the next opportunity to increase the tonnage record.
They don’t build things there like the Romans did to last for millenia.
@Tim McCormack29: Not when the Mafia is building it.
@Pat Lonergan: smug and ignorant comment, some knowledge of topography rather than Netflix would be a plus.
Never happened before……must be climate change,
@Eugene Conroy: comment deleted for stating climate has been changing since year dot !!!
@SF Knee Knockers: two words! “Happening faster”. Try and keep up.
@Paul Furey: faster than what…earth billions of years old..human records only for a few 100 years…climate has been changing forever.. faster slower faster.
Ligurian infrastructure is in such a state. No area of europe has suffered so much with bridge collapses despite the fact that they pay the highest road tolls in Europe, and most of the motorways there consist vastly of viaducts like this, which were said to have been audited after the last collapse.
@.: it’s probably the most corrupt country in the Europe. Millions of EU grant money has just disappeared into black holes and is untraceable.
@Conoroconnor: I read about how mafia ran most of the construction in certain parts of Italy. Never had any competition so they where awarded all the civil contracts.
@Conoroconnor: as an Italian myself I am afraid I have to agree. Left Italy decades ago but very little seems to have changed and corruption seems still incredibly widespread
@Robbie Clancy: No5nonly that but they provided sub-standard concrete and Steele to state projects and in turn bribed construction standards authority overseers to turn a blind eye. Modern Italy is crumbling. The motorways are the worst in western Europe.
@Attilio: the thing is, I love italy. A truly beautiful country with some of the most unspoiled countryside, incredible old walled towns, lovely people and the best food in the world. Such a shame.
@Conoroconnor: well then jump in your Ferrari and enjoy some of the best roads, best scenery, best food by a mile, wine and best people. I’m not Italian but I have family there and I dislike it being disparaged despite it being 10 times the country ours is.
@Mike McGann: most of my italian friends would agree with my assessment of the corruption. Like I said, it’s a pity because it is otherwise such a great country & great people I’m not saying we are that much better, by the way. but I spoke with people in Apulia who were in awe of how Ireland has used it’s a EU Grant’s for redevelopment over the years, as over there the money just disappears with little or no obvious development having taken place. The mechanisms of the Italian state have also taken bureaucracy to a whole new level. These are the faults with the place, but I really love Italy and its people. In many ways, public transport for example, ithey way ahead of us. By the way, I go cycling there once a year and their smaller roads are in as bad of condition as ours, if not worse.
@Conoroconnor: Great country. I’m regularly there. Was only there last week. I’m I correct in saying this road from Genoa to Ventimiglia was constructed not long after WW2 originally. Are some of these structures from the 50s & 60s?
For those putting this down to poor Italian infrastructure, this is also happening in the French Alps where least 2 people have died. There is an unprecedented level of flooding happening. Put this together with Venice recently and parts of England that experienced an absolute monumental deluge, and you have a pattern of highly unusual weather events that are fully predicted by climate change.
https://amp.breakingnews.ie/world/two-dead-as-floods-hit-france-and-italy-966261.html
@Paraic: You must be racking up the brownie points with Cookie and Dana at Skeppie Science.
@Tommy Roche: How many troll accounts is it now that you’ve racked up?
better get used to it whatever the reason the climate is a changing.
Made with mafia Concrete!!!!!!
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