[News] The cocaine collectors "of Rotterdam: the life in the shadows of the young people who unload the drug that travels from Latin America to Europe

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It is a criminal business on the rise.

The increase in the volume of cocaine sent from Latin America to the Netherlands, through the port of Rotterdam, has also increased the number of young people employed by criminal organizations to collect the drugs hidden in freight.

The BBC has seen the dangerous work of so-called "cocaine collectors", who act as a link to drug supply chains in Europe.

Short presentational gray line
The monitor shows a dozen dark figures running in line with military precision toward a cargo container in the port of Rotterdam.

The Colombian tropical fruit shipment may have already been unloaded, but this 12-meter-long metal box among the thousands of identical containers still has merchandise inside: 80 kilos of cocaine hidden in a refrigerator, with a market value of around 4 million euros (US $ 4.52 million).

 

The collectors' mission is to remove the drug from the container and away from the docks. Then it will be sent to European capitals such as Amsterdam, Berlin or London.

"The port is a gold mine," says a hooded man when interviewed by journalist Danny Ghosen on the Dutch network VPRO.

"I can earn good money close to home ... and there is always work."

He is one of the young men employed by powerful criminal gangs.

"Every assignment is different," he says. "A boss tells you 'you are going to earn so much to distribute'; others say 'you will keep part of the drug to sell it yourselves'".

2,000 euros per kilo
A collector can earn around 2,000 euros (US $ 2,260) for every kilo of cocaine they unload. And business is on the rise.

"We discovered them about two years ago," says Andre Kramer, owner of a logistics company in the port.

"There was one or maybe two and you saw them a couple of times a year. But in the last six months the groups have grown. They are 10 or 12 people and they perform 3 or 4 times a week."

The increase in traffic is making the collectors' methods more sophisticated.

Sometimes, they do not remove the cocaine from the port, but instead transfer it to another container designated by the gangs with the help of someone from within. The merchandise will then leave the port area in a truck. At other times, gangs wait inside the port for drug shipments.

"We recently found three hotel containers," says Kramer. "Collectors can spend days there. They eat, drink and relieve themselves inside. We found mattresses, empty water bottles and food containers.

 

 

But hiding in a container waiting for the path to clear can be extremely dangerous.

In early September, nine youths were trapped after the door of the container in which they were hiding was jammed, partly filled with logs.

"If you enclose yourself with things like wood or fruit, which consume oxygen, there will be less air for the people inside," explains Jan Janse, head of the Rotterdam port police.

Although the bands usually make sure that the containers can be opened from the inside, this time something went wrong and the collectors were trapped.

In the midst of the panic, the collectors called 112 for help.

"We had this information that nine people were going to die in a container, but in a terminal with 100,000 containers, and the collectors themselves did not know exactly where they were," says Janse.

"We had to search all the facilities, with helicopters, a lot of police, customs agents, firemen and ambulances. They were lucky that we found them in time."

It took 4 hours to find them. Some of the men had to be hospitalized for breathing difficulties. For security reasons, Janse, who has been the port police chief for seven years, prefers not to reveal how they found the collectors.

 

LINK: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-59438179