BKA investigators are increasingly monitoring large drug shipments to Germany.
Drug trafficking is growing in Germany. “We see a huge demand for drugs in Germany,” said the deputy head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Martina Link, on Thursday in Wiesbaden. There are many criminal groups that deal in drugs on a large scale. This is a serious problem in Germany. Overall, the number of drug offenses nationwide in 2021 fell by 1.3 percent compared to the previous year.
Drug trafficking and drug smuggling are the main sources of income for organized crime, Link said. Almost half of these groups are active in the field of internationally organized drug trafficking.
According to the BKA, about 56,000 of the approximately 361,000 drug offenses registered in 2021 were related to drug trafficking. That’s a 2.9 percent increase over a year ago, Link explained. Almost 48,000 suspects have been identified due to the illegal drug trade in Germany. Overall, the total number of suspects in relation to drug-related offenses – including possession and purchase – fell slightly year-on-year.
The largest number of drug offenses detected last year, at almost 60 percent, were related to cannabis. The investigator said the proportion was about ten percent for amphetamine and about six percent for cocaine, while heroin and crystal made up about three percent.
The drug is not only offered and marketed classically on the street, but increasingly also on the Internet. The perpetrators mainly used the Darknet, but also social networking sites and messaging services. According to the vice president of BKA, this trend has continued and makes criminal prosecution very expensive.
The perpetrators made billions in profits from the international drug trade. The investigator said that these illegal profits would be reinvested in the drug business or the money would flow into the legal economy and into real estate, gastronomy or arcades. 1,826 people died in Germany in 2021 as a result of their drug addiction. According to BKA, this corresponds to an increase of 15.5 percent year-on-year. The main causes of death were the use of heroin and opiate substitution drugs.