Attempting to smuggle cocaine no longer necessarily means hiding a white powder inside bags and parcels. With the development of detection tools, smugglers have developed smuggling methods, resorting to changing the chemical form of the narcotic substance so that it appears to be part of a legitimate shipment, through what is known as "liquid cocaine".
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“Liquid cocaine” means that the active ingredient is dissolved or hidden within a medium, whether liquid or solid, instead of being transported in its usual form. This is a method that the “Insight Crime” organization, which specializes in studying organized crime, has documented as increasingly being
The organization, which has its headquarters in Washington, USA and Medellin, Colombia, in a statement issued on September 14, quoted data from the European Drug Agency indicating that cocaine extraction laboratories have been found throughout Europe, where in 2024 six EU member states reported dismantling at least 42 sites linked to the production, extraction, mixing with other substances or packaging of cocaine, compared to 34 sites in 2023.
Despite the mask that smugglers think they have put on cocaine, the science that has been misused to achieve this is the same science that is turning into a positive tool in the hands of regulatory authorities to remove this mask.
the chemical tools to detect an attempt by a smuggler to smuggle 8.2 kilograms of liquid cocaine inside shampoo bottles. Last July, Irish police were able to seize wooden panels of plywood that were saturated with liquid cocaine, before sending them to a secret laboratory to extract the cocaine from them.
In the Spanish case, "shampoo" represents one of the most common means of smuggling, as cocaine is converted into a liquid form that can be concealed inside it, and then transported inside containers that look like legitimate commercial products. It can also be transported inside cleaning materials and industrial products.
In the case of Ireland, wood is the most common material used in processes called "impregnation," along with other materials such as hard plastics, coal, resins, cardboard and paper, wax materials, fabrics and textiles.
"Impregnation" means that the "liquid cocaine" is absorbed into the structure and pores of another substance, so that the absorbed substance does not remain merely a layer on the surface, and some means are later used to recover the absorbed substance.
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