
In the Hands of the Cocaine Mafia: How European Ports Are Being Infiltrated
Container ports have become the front line of Europe's cocaine trade, and this DW documentary follows the investigators trying to hold that line. After Rotterdam and Antwerp, Hamburg has become the continent's largest entry point for smuggled cocaine, with authorities estimating they catch only 10 to 20 percent of what comes through. The film explains how the mafia depends on "insiders," dock workers, drivers, logistics staff, and IT employees paid four-to-five-figure sums per job to locate and extract shipments before customs finds them. Cameras follow the new Port Security Center's dog teams and mobile X-ray units as they inspect trucks and containers, and track a real case out of Rotterdam: a ship arriving from Ecuador with 600 kilograms of cocaine hidden in banana crates, followed through the quay-side logistics to the eventual arrest. Interviews with police and customs officers lay out how recruitment works and why insiders who want out often can't. The result is a grounded procedural look at a billion-dollar smuggling pipeline running through ordinary port jobs.