
Cocaine for Germany
Cocaine residue in Berlin's sewage has doubled since 2017, and this film tracks why the drug keeps flooding into Germany even as prohibition fails to slow it down. It follows the new smuggling routes shippers use to move product from South America into European ports, focusing on Hamburg, where customs investigators made the largest cocaine seizure in German and European history in early 2021: sixteen tons hidden in a single shipment. Interviews with investigators, customs officers, and people close to the trade lay out how seizure numbers have doubled in recent years even though the rate of container inspections has stayed flat, a gap that points to how much cocaine is getting through undetected. The film traces who profits at each link of the chain, from the cartels supplying the raw product to the dealers and distributors working German cities, and asks why demand has spiked since the pandemic. It is a straightforward piece of investigative reporting built on official data and on-the-record law enforcement access rather than dramatization.