EU Drug Market: Drivers and facilitators — Criminal tools
This resource is part of EU Drug Market: Drivers and facilitators by the EMCDDA and Europol.
Drug-trafficking criminal networks use a range of equipment and techniques to facilitate their activities and avoid detection. These include weapons and explosives, fraudulent documents and encrypted communication. Other relevant enablers (not covered in detail here) include money laundering and corruption. In some cases, criminals collaborate with other networks and individuals that possess these tools and capacities.
Firearms and other weapons
The harm caused by the use of firearms and other weapons by criminal networks involved in the drugs trade is both direct and indirect. Direct impacts include kidnappings, torture, killings and injuries, which may occur during disputes between rival gangs over territories, while indirect impacts include intimidation, for example, by throwing explosives or shooting at houses or cars and the coercion of victims. High-profile incidents of violence between rival networks significantly undermine communities’ trust in the ability of the authorities to fight crime and protect them, and thus strengthen the foothold that criminals can gain in communities and drug markets. Firearms violence between groups involved in street-level drug distribution also results in collateral casualties, who can be innocent bystanders (De Schutter and Duquet, 2023). Changes in drug markets may affect levels of drug-related violence, including the use of firearms to protect and enable criminal interests (see Box Escalation of drug-related violence).
Over recent years, reactivated or modified weapons capable of firing live rounds, have become increasingly available to criminals. The criminal exploitation of legal loopholes and legislative variations between countries, particularly regarding the supply and distribution of such weapons, might have contributed to their heightened availability in a number of EU Member States. This also includes ‘acoustic expansion weapons’ and Flobert-calibre firearms (1) (De Schutter and Duquet, 2023). In some countries, this has been linked to increased gun violence. For example, many of the gun incidents in the drug-trafficking milieu in southern Spain between 2018 and 2020 were connected to the use of reactivated firearms, mainly from Spain, as well as Flobert-calibre firearms and acoustic firearms, often from east European countries (De Schutter and Duquet, 2023).
Encrypted communication
With the emergence of encrypted communication solutions, criminals have found additional opportunities to coordinate operations across the globe. Among these tools are custom-modified encrypted communication devices (mobile phones) with modified hardware and software that provide anonymity and give access to encrypted networks. Such devices are used to reduce the visibility of criminal operations. Such devices were exposed in investigations into major encrypted communication networks (EncroChat, Sky ECC and Anom) and have given law enforcement authorities in the European Union an insight into the operations of criminal networks orchestrating large-scale drug trafficking (see Box Using EncroChat evidence for conviction).
While data encryption is an important tool to ensure protection, privacy and fundamental rights, it should be stressed that increased availability and ongoing advances in this area are likely to continue to provide drug traffickers with a wide range of resources to conduct their activities and impede law enforcement investigations. The Council Resolution on Encryption (Council of the European Union, 2020) highlights the importance to the European Union of continued dialogue with the tech industry, academia and other stakeholders. It also underscores the importance of balancing the privacy and legitimate security benefits of encryption technology with the ability of law enforcement and the judiciary to conduct surveillance operations on digital communications. With more privacy measures being rolled out, European Police Chiefs have called for industry and governments to take urgent action to ensure public safety across social media platforms (Europol, 2024b).
Fraudulent documents
The use of fraudulent documents continues to facilitate various forms of serious and organised crime, including drug trafficking (Europol, 2021b). Criminal networks use fraudulent documents for various purposes and as such they are identified as a cross-cutting threat to be addressed at EU level between 2022 and 2025 (Council of the European Union, 2023). Examples include fraudulent identity documents used by truck drivers transporting illicit drugs; fake employment contracts obtained to pretend that companies are conducting real business with employees, or to provide cover to criminals falsely registered as company employees; and fraudulent transport and customs waybills used to facilitate the cross-border movement of drug loads concealed with or among legal commodities, as well as for transferring drug profits (Savona and Riccardi, 2018).
Drug traffickers and producers may also use fraudulent documents to rent locations for drug production; to procure drug precursors, essential chemicals and laboratory equipment; and to facilitate access to key locations in the drugs trafficking process, such as shipping container terminals in maritime ports and airport terminals.
It has become easier to acquire fraudulent documents, thanks to dedicated criminal networks that supply them as a service, and e-commerce shops that provide on-demand access to personalised identity documents. In an analysis of 19 online vendors (both darknet and surface web), some indicated that they had access to inside sources for processing materials and documentation, as well as the printing equipment required to produce convincing documents (Holt and Lee, 2020).
(1) Flobert-calibre firearms are small-calibre firearms (4 mm or 6 mm) designed for indoor target-shooting.
References
Consult the list of references used in this module.