Data on worldwide cocaine seizures reported in the international press, in comparison with official production estimates
* The figure has been calculated on the basis of a daily monitoring of over a hundred official sources compared with the main International media outlets. It takes into account a corrective estimate regarding undisclosed seizures, that were nevertheless counted in the official estimates, obtained from the trend of world seizures over the last five years for every single country. The final figure, on December 31, 2011, will be compared with the official one published by the different government institutions during the first weeks of 2012.
**In addition to the record amount of cocaine seized in anti-drug operations, there was a vast amount of cocaine that Narcoleaks also kept track of, including: cocaine sunk at sea or destroyed by drug traffickers when chased by the police, in order to remove the body of the crime: 20.921 metric tons; cocaine that could be extracted from coca leaves ready to be processed, which were discovered and destroyed by police in clandestine laboratories in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, equivalent to 25-30 metric tons; cocaine estimated by the investigators during criminal investigations completed during the year in different countries and ascribable to 2011: 404.834 metric tons.
*** Latest world production official estimate (U.S. Department of State).
**** Latest figure published by UNODC (World Drug Report 2011). The Report provides an approximate world production estimate (842-1.111 mt/2009 – 786-1,054 mt/2010). However, UNODC has subsequently formulated separate production estimates referred to Colombia (410 t), Peru (350 t), and Bolivia (100-110 t), thus totaling 860-870 metric tons.
– narcoleaks –
What is missing about narcotrafficking today is the big picture of the whole phenomenon. The reported news looks fragmentary, failing to convey an exact idea of its size. In fact, the official data provided by national institutions and international organizations don’t really help to understand. As already proved by the Italian association Libera in 2007, they do not reflect reality. The main purpose of Narcoleaks is simply to keep track of drug seizures in the world. Seizures data constitute the only reliable information on illegal drug trade. In 2011 we will only take into consideration the seizures of cocaine. On this website they will be rounded down compared with reality, since our monitoring can only consider those cases reported by competent authorities – particularly those of Latin American countries.
The project involves a group of Italian journalists and researchers under the scientific direction of Sandro Donati, author of several research papers on cocaine production and trafficking for the Italian association Libera.
